LITMIR.BIZ

This play distills the essence of Congreve into one stageworthy play. William Congreve wrote four comedies: The Way of the World is his acknowledged masterpiece; Love for Love is less brilliant but easier to perform; The Old Bachelor and The Double Dealer, his early dramas, contain very good material but are rarely read let alone performed. Frank Morlock builds his own adaptation of Congreve's dramas on the general plot of Love for Love, and interweaves characters and dialogue from the other plays into and around it. In the process some characters are blended with other characters, and acquire clever dialogue found elsewhere. Almost every line in this drama is Congreve’s. The result is a lively play that keeps Congreve’s best comedic work fresh and vital for a new audience.

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Based on the bestselling novel by James Branch Cabell, Jurgen is a philosophical fantasy in the manner of Candide, which strings together the hero's sexual adventures into an ironic and satirical commentary on life and sex. During his travels through space and time, Jurgen encounters a number of different characters from history, and always manages to escape his follies, relying on his natural attractive charm to rescue him when nothing else works. The sexual innuendoes in the original novel were so strong that attempts were made to prevent the book's publication, and to ban it from circulation–but now his escapades just seem bitingly funny and entertaining. A sophisticated comedy for adults with a sharply-pointed stiletto of satire!

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While French writer Alexandre Dumas is best-known for The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, many critics consider his Marie-Antoinette novels to be his greatest achievement. Indeed, he was working on a dramatization of The Queen's Necklace at the time of his death in 1870. This was never published, but French playwright Pierre Decourcelle then produced his own version of this work. A successful dramatist, Decourcelle did a brilliant job of adapting Dumas's epic novel, salting the text with such larger-than-life figures as King Louis XVI, Queen Marie-Antoninette, Cagliostro, and the Countess de la Motte. When the scandal surrounding the French court finally breaks, you have the feeling that you're actually there, watching the tragedy unfold before your eyes. First-rate historical drama!

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Charles Desnoyer (1806-1858) and Léon Beauvallet (1828-1885) were French playwrights of the mid-nineteenth century. THE KING OF ROME focuses on the Emperor Napoleon's only son, the Duke of Reichstadt, who was held a captive by his maternal grandfather, the Emperor of Austria. Fearing that he would emulate his father or be used by a Napoleonic conspiracy to capture the French throne, the Duke was kept in ignorance of his father's identity, as well as of the basic facts of recent European history; and an attempt was also made to debauch his morals, in order to discredit his name if he did escape. This play traces the attempt of a French soldier to penetrate the Austrian palace where the boy was kept, as part of a failed attempt to free him from his «prison»; and the awakening of the younger Napoleon to an awareness of his deadly family heritage. First-rate political drama by two accomplished writers!

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Dr. Ivans, unable to make a living in London, migrates with his two daughters to Australia, where he hopes to make his fortune; one of his girls, Melida, is forced to leave her suitor, Williams, behind. Arriving in Australia, Ivans finds himself unable to improve his fortune–he's too willing to help the poor, and has a good reputation for charitable works. Then a group of gold miners, a motley crew of Frenchmen, send for him to heal a young miner who's dying. This poor lad was stabbed by a young man named Max, who posed as his friend to steal his gold. Max falls madly in love with Melida, who is still pining for Williams. When Williams follows his lover to Australia, and gets a job with the government escorting gold shipments from the mines to Melbourne, Max decides to hijack the shipment and kill Williams. Eventually, Max is exposed and tries to kidnap Melida, leading to the action-filled climax of this fast-moving Australian «western.» One of Dumas's most unusual creations, this was based on a bestselling novel by the Countess de Chabrillan.

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To save his father from execution for treason, the Bravo Giovanni agrees to act as an assassin for The Council of Ten, and ruthlessly carries out their orders for targeted killings against real or imagined enemies of the Serene Republic of Venice in Italy. Inevitably, the Council members begin using the Bravo for their own purposes. When the Count de Bellamonte lusts after a helpless orphan girl, he forces Giovanni to eliminate her protector. But the girl's mother, the most sought-after courtesan in Venice, uses all her power and influence to protect her daughter. The play, adapted from a novel by American writer James Fenimore Cooper, is filled with eerie beauty and quiet horror–like Venice itself, a gondola of pretty pearls rocking gently on the murky, putrefying, garbage-laden waves of its many canals.

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Set in Roman times, Voltaire's play THE TRIUMVIRATE details a meeting on an island between Anthony and Octavian, in which the two main players in the post-Caesar Roman world decide how to divide up the spoils of war–and eliminate all potential rivals. Anthony agrees to divorce his wife Fulvia and marry Octavian's sister; and Octavian wants to marry Julia, Lucius's daughter, who loves Sextus Pompey, son of Pompey the Great. When a storm lands Julia and Pompey Junior on the island, Fulvia agrees to help the star-crossed lovers–if they will aid her in gaining her revenge on Anthony and Octavian. Louis Lurine and Albéric Second's play COMEDY AT FERNEY features an elderly Voltaire, who must put off a starstruck young female fan who wants to meet him. But Voltaire's guest, the Prince de Ligne, decides to use the situation to sample the favors of the infatuated woman. A clever and swift-moving comedy.

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Written in 1847, while Dumas was at the height of his powers, this play recounts the events leading up to the Saint Bartholomew's Day massacre of the French Huguenots–and the subsequent death of King Charles IX. The playwright focuses on the people inadvertently caught up in the slaughter–which, once started, cannot be repressed. By following the fate of two nobles, the Catholic Count Coconnas and the Huguenot Count de la Mole, and linking their stories to Queen Marguerite (called Margot), wife in name only to the Huguenot King of Navarre (the future King Henry IV of France), Dumas reveals the terror and duplicity that the massacre incurred even at the highest levels of society–including the royal family. Despite its length, the story moves quickly and with great force. One of Dumas's best historical narratives!

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This adaptation of the Alexandre Dumas tale tells the story of two brothers, born as Siamese twins, but separated not long after birth. They're raised by two different families, but are still able to «feel» the emotions of the other, even at a distance. On the island of Corsica they become entwined in the long-running feud between the Orlandi and the Colonnas–a dispute that had its beginnings in a dispute over the ownership of a chicken! Most of the two families have now been eliminated through the ongoing blood-feud, but the twins, unbeknownst to each other, are being manipulated to settle the fate of the two clans once and for all. The result is a stunning climax of swordplay and violence!

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Well-known French writer Théophile Gautier and Bernard Lopez combine their talents in this send-up of the cloak-and-sword dramas so popular with the Romantics. When the Spanish Queen's horse runs away with her, two unknown caballeros rescue Elizabeth from certain death–despite the fact that Spanish law prohibits anyone but the King and her closest attendants from touching her. But the Queen is not ungrateful, and Doña Beatrix, a Lady-in-Waiting, promises to marry the unknown savior, sight unseen, if the Queen can somehow save her rescuer from the capital punishment demanded by statute. A comedy of errors ensues, with two possible suitors pressing their claims upon Beatrix–and also on the Queen! A delightful and hilarious drama that should play well to modern audiences.

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