LITMIR.BIZ

Lorca's beautiful and savage play is transplanted from the suffocating heat of Spain to a barren landscape much closer to home, bringing Yerma's anguish at her childlessness into heart-breaking focus. Suffocating in a life void of passion, Yerma turns to unconventional sources for answers. Her innocent yet controversial actions send shockwaves through a tiny and stagnant community. Desperate and unbearably lonely, Yerma commits the ultimate act of rebellion, setting her free yet sealing her unhappy fate forever.

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Barry Reckord’s place in the history of black playwriting in the United Kingdom unfortunately has been almost unrecognised previously. Reckord was among the first modern Caribbean playwrights to have work produced in England. As a Jamaican abroad in the '50s and '60s he laid a solid foundation for later emerging Caribbean playwrights such as Trinidadian Mustapha Matura, Guyanese Michael Abbensetts and Jamaican Alfred Fagon in the '70s, all of whom appreciated how well Reckord’s work had paved their way forward.No scripts of Reckord’s impressive body of work have been made available previously, many incomplete manuscripts exist but this is the first complete volume of Reckord plays. Here we present three, each from a different decade. These are ‘Flesh to a Tiger’ , ‘Skyvers’ and ‘The White Witch’ , each with an introduction by a prominent authority on the subject or author.

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‘A terrific collection of work by writers I admire hugely. Each of them prove that there is no such thing as the black experience, but only black experiences.’ Roy WilliamsThis second and sister volume to Hidden Gems showcases a further range of plays by Black British writers whose work reaches beyond themes too-often perceived by mainstream theatre commissioning as defining Black people’s experiences. The plays, monodrama and libretto represent subject-matter from woman-centred history, revolutionary politics, trans-racial adoption and African-diasporic familial heritage, as contoured by the writers’ boundary-crossing profiles as poets, playwrights, performers and directors. The accompanying critical introductions are provided by people committed to recognising the aesthetic and political significance of the work, and its necessary inclusion in British theatre and literary history.includes the plays A BITTER HERB KWAME KWEI-ARMAH THE FAR SIDE COURTTIA NEWLAND IDENTITY PAUL ANTHONY MORRIS,i>URBAN AFRO SAXONS[/i] KOFI AGYEMANG & PATRICIA ELCOCK MARY SEACOLE SUANDI ABSOLUTION MALIKA BOOKER

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Und , a play for one woman and six trays, is a moving study of dignityand self-delusion. When a guest, perhaps a lover, fails to appear foran appointment, his hostess invents excuses for his neglect, evenwhen ill-manners degenerate into barbarity. The hostess is Jewish, theinvisible guest a Nazi officer. The Twelfth Battle of Isonzo is the twelfth marriage of a very old manto a young woman a fraction of his age. Their mutual fascination isintensified but also rendered ambiguous by the fact that both are blind.The intellectual and erotic manoeuvres conducted between them areakin to a dance, and what begins as a hypothesis becomes a painfulexposure of the many meanings of intimacy. 12 Encounters with a Prodigy concentrates a theme Barker has exploredover many plays – the solitude of the precocious child. Kisster, an adoredorphan, has been taught to exploit the pity of the world for his ownadvantage. From inside his fortified personality, Kisster manipulates ahost of predatory characters, keeping at bay angels and vagrants in hisstruggle to survive.In Christ’s Dog the dying Lazar, arch-seducer and bigamist, treads out ajourney he feels compelled to undertake to reach accommodation withhis past. At every stage of his search, a different version of the untoldstory of Christ’s dog is proposed to him. Lazar understands that hisseemingly worthless life – akin to the mongrel that howls at the foot ofthe cross – is a critical element of human morality. Learning Kneeling is perhaps the most terrible of Barker’s works, a playof apparently unredeemed extremity, relieved by a wit and a scrupulousintensity of thought that renders it a tribute to human persistence andimagination. Sturdee, a legless man of property, finds his home andhis mistress seized by terrorists, the leader of whom, Demonstrator byname and instinct, leads him into a nightmare of ambiguities.

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From the last lonely wilderness, the last dark corner of these overlit times, in the camouflage of the common man, Thom Pain takes the stage, fumbling with his heart, squinting into the light. With terrible timing and impeccable regret, over-educated in the wrong ways, and wounded in the right ones, he appears. Teeth bared, as he picks a piece of lint off his suit.Listen to the language writhe, as he tries to say hello. Meet Thom Pain. A man who has only had, by his own reckless reckoning, three or four things happen to him in life. A man who is, by his own admittedly uninformed admission, a man much like a man or woman like you. Thom Pain opened at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2004, with a transfer to the Soho Theatre later that year.

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In The Friends (1970), Esther is diagnosed with leukaemia, causing her friends to reassess their working-class identity, their imagined achievements as well as their own mortality. Bluey (1993) is a play about repressed memory resurfacing and three imagined futures that the protagonist cannot muster the courage to confront. In Men Die Women Survive (1990) a trio of estranged wives gather around the dinner table. As they conduct a post-mortem on their failed relationships a tale of betrayal and revenge emerges. Telling the story of a 44-year-old actress Gertie and her influence on Sam, a black teenager working as a car-park attendant, Wild Spring (1992) explores acting as a metaphor for the false images of ourselves with which we fall in love.

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Featuring verbatim testimony from key political and security fi gures, this play examines the criminal implications of the British Government’s decision to use force against Iraq. Two leading barristers have examined a range of witnesses in order to test the evidence of the grounds for the indictment of the British Prime Minister. The play is presented as a trial in which the audience decides whether an indictment is proven.

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Playing the Games is a duo of plays focussing on the London 2012 Olympics, it includes: Taking Part by Adam BraceLucky Henry, a Congolese security guard, has set his sights on representing his country at the 2012 Olympics. Only one problem; he’s a terrible swimmer and his Russian coach wants to fly home on the first day of training. Everyone loves an underdog – think Eddie the Eagle or Eric the Eel. Follow Henry’s journey from deep end straggler to Olympic hopeful as the two men try to fulfil their dreams at the London games. After The Party by Serge CartwrightSean and Ray are best friends from Stratford. Once a promising DJ double act, now they’re stuck in a rut: 30ish, unemployed but still clinging to a fantasy of making it in the music industry. With a baby on the way and the world about to arrive on their doorstep for London 2012, it could be the perfect opportunity for them to make something of their lives…

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The story of a railway worker’s son who became one of the most powerful, outspoken and charismatic figures in European theatre. Sir Peter Hall has been director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, artistic director of Glyndebourne, and director of Britain’s National Theatre from 1973 to 1988. He has directed over 150 productions of plays, operas and films, and now runs his own acclaimed theatre company

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‘If one of the problems facing new playwrights is the expectation that each of their plays should be similar in style, Wade…proved that you could radically change both form and content… Not every writer delivers on their early promise. As this collection clearly shows, Wade certainly has.’ Aleks Sierz, from his IntroductionCOLDER THAN HERE‘Laura Wade’s play is a 90-minute masterpiece, a jewel, dark but translucent. It is a play of love, death and grief: the grief that is hardest to bear, because it begins before the loved one dies.’ Sunday Times BREATHING CORPSES‘The tension, the emotions and the sense of absurdity and fear are brilliantly handled… A terrifying tour de force.’ Sunday Times OTHER HANDS‘This is an extraordinary feat – a vicious satire with a heart of gold – wrought with peculiar subtlety and intelligence.’ The Spectator

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