Replay: Classic Modern Drama Reimagined

(Hardback)

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Replay: Classic Modern Drama Reimagined spans over a century of great theatre to explore how iconic plays have been adapted and versioned by later writers to reflect or dissect the contemporary zeitgeist. Starting with A Dolls House, Ibsens much-reprised masterpiece of marital relations from 1879, Toby Zinman explores what made the play so controversial and shocking in its day before tracing how later reimaginings have reworked Ibsens original. The spine of plays then includes such landmark works as Strindbergs Miss Julie, Oscar Wildes comic The Importance of Being Earnest, Chekhovs Three Sisters and Uncle Vanya, Hansberrys A Raisin in the Sun, the Rattigan centenary revivals, Thornton Wilders Our Town, ultimately arriving at Becketts Waiting for Godot. Taking each modern play as the starting point, Zinman explores the diverse renderings and reworkings by subsequent playwrights and artists including prominent directors and their controversial productions as well as acknowledging reworkings in film, opera and ballet.Through the course of this groundbreaking study we discover not only how theatrical styles have changed but how societys attitude towards politics, religion, money, gender, sexuality and race have radically altered over the course of the century. In turn Replay reveals how theatre can serve as both a reflection of our times and a provocation to them.

Author Bio

Toby Zinman is Professor of English, University of the Arts, Philadelphia, USA, and theatre critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer and Variety.