Schimmelpfennig: Plays One: The Animal Kingdom; Peggy Pickit Sees the Face of God; Idomeneus; The Four Points of the Compass

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Roland Schimmelpfennig is the most performed contemporary German playwright. This collection demonstrates the breadth and formal innovation of his writing. The Animal Kingdom depicts the unremitting battle for human survival in a merciless environment: the theatre. Peggy Pickit Sees the Face of God has been likened to a post-colonial Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Here two doctors who have returned from Africa reveal the true cost of their failure to combat a terrible and frightening disease. Idomeneus is a narrative play written for a large chorus which re-tells the classical Idomeneus myth in contemporary terms; a fractured, mythic tidal wave, brought to life with astounding theatricality by an ensemble of storytellers. A small narrative piece, The Four Points of the Compass is an urban fable of crossed destinies and uncanny coincidences and a compelling contemporary tale of lust for life and the fragility of existence.

Author Bio

German playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig is one of the most prolific and heralded young dramatists in Europe. By age 38, he has already written 16 plays that have been translated into 20 languages. David Tushingham works as a dramaturg and curator for the Salzburg Festival and the Duesseldorfer Schauspielhaus. He has adapted Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories for The National Theatre, London and translated plays by Roland Schimmelpfennig, Dea Loher, Falk Richter and numerous other contemporary German playwrights. His recent translation of Roland Schimmelpfennig's The Golden Dragon has been performed in London, Edinburgh, Washington D.C., Toronto, Pittsburgh, Melbourne and on tour in India, Kurdistan and Ireland.