The Storm Or, the Howler (after Plautus)

(Paperback)

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Descending from the heavenly sphere of the gods to the mortal world below, Arcturus raises a mighty storm. For Labrax, a procurer of women, the storm brings shipwreck and ruin. For his two female captives it offers a chance of escape. Washed up on a rocky coastline the two women seek refuge in the shrine of Venus, but it seems that the goddess alone cannot protect them. They are forced to rely instead on the help of the elderly Daemones, who is already struggling to control his reluctant slaves: the impudent Sceparnio and the inept Gripus. Drawn from a lost Greek play, The Storm is the most popular of Plautus Roman comedies. This version opened at Shakespeares Globe Theatre in July 2005 as part of the World and Underworld Season.

Author Bio

Plautus, Titus Maccius (254-184 BC) was a Roman playwright, whose comedies were the most popular dramatic works of their day. He was originally an actor or clown. Twenty-one of his 130 plays survive, revealing his theatrical craftsmanship and total mastery of farce. Although his works were palliata, adaptations of Greek new comedy originals now lost, he shifted the scene to Rome and based much of the humour on Roman manners and customs. His comedy, which was broader than that of Terence, still works today. Stock characters of Plautus's plays include the bragging soldier, the miser, the old man in love, the parasite, identical twins, the wily slave, and the courtesan. Later European dramatists influenced by Plautus include Shakespeare, Jonson, Dryden, and Molire. His comedy was often based on disguises and mistaken identities; Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors (1592) was based on Plautus's Menaechmi, about the confusions caused by a pair of long-separated identical twins. Several of his plays were combined for Stephen Sondheim's 1962 Broadway musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (although only one line from Plautus was retained: "I am a parade"). Plautus was eventually forced to work in a grain mill after losing most of his theatrical earnings in unsuccessful business ventures. Peter Oswald was born in England in 1965. His original plays include the verse plays Allbright and Valadonama, and Fair Ladies At A Game Of Poem Cards, Augustines Oak, Ramayana, and Sha Kuntala. He has also adapted plays by Sophocles and Lorca.