Scenery: Interior

No Exit was first presented in New York at the Biltmore Theatre with Claude Dauphin Annabella and Ruth Ford. Two women and one man are locked up together for eternity in one hideous room in hell. The windows are bricked up; there are no mirrors; the electric lights can never be turned off; and there is no exit. The irony of this hell is that its torture is not of the rack and fire but of the burning humiliation of each soul as it is

An existential portrayal of Hell in Sartre's best-known play, as well as three other brilliant, thought-provoking works: the reworking of the Electra-Orestes story, the conflict of a young intellectual torn between theory and conflict, and an arresting attack on American racism.

Widely considered the most popular modern French play, Cyrano de Bergerac has dazzled audiences with its wit and eloquence since it premiered in 1897.
Cyrano, a quarrelsome, hot-tempered swordsman, as famous for his dueling skills and pugnacity as for his inordinately long nose, is hopelessly enamored of the beautiful Roxane. She, in turn, is in love with Christian, a handsome but inarticulate and slow-witted suitor. Asked for help by Christian in wooing Roxane, Cyrano pours out his heart in romantic dialogues -- delivered under cover of night and dense foliage -- and through ardent love letters written in the name of Christian.
Presented here in a rich blank verse translation by poet Louis Untermeyer, this beloved romantic comedy will be warmly received by theater buffs as well as students and teachers of drama and literature.

Though known for his novels that plumb the depths of absurdism, it was the theater stage that Camus called one of the only places in the world I'm happy. After forming two troupes in his early twenties in Algeria, the prolific author moved to Paris for work, where between 1944-1949 he would go on to stage the four original plays gathered in this collection.

Caligula, his first full-length work for the stage, begins with the infamous Roman emperor in the throes of grief at the death of his sister Drusilla and tugs at the same essential question that haunts so much of Camus's work: Faced with the nullifying force of time, which snuffs out even our grandest emotions, how does one go on living? And is there a limit to the hardness of the human heart?

Here too are The Misunderstanding, a murderous tangle of the longing for home and the longing for elsewhere; The Just, depicting the 1905 assassination of a Grand Duke in Moscow and testing the ethical limits of one's belief in a political cause; and State of Emergency, an allegorical romp where The Plague itself appears as a central character, shedding new light on our current battles with viral disease and authoritarian regimes.

These are engaging, often incendiary works, now in fresh English translations that beg to be performed.

This memorable collection gathers the plays of the great social satirist and playwright Moli re, representing the many facets of his genius and offering a superb introduction to the comic inventiveness, richness of prose, and insight that make up Moli re's enduring legacy to theater, literature, and the world.

Translated and with an Introduction by Donald M. Frame, a Foreword by Virginia Scott, and a New Afterword

The Misanthrope is a searching comic study of falsity, shallowness, and self-righteousness through the character of Alceste, a man whose conscience and sincerity are too rigorous for his time.

In Tartuffe, a wily, opportunistic swindler manipulates a wealthy prude and bigot through his claims of piety. This latter translation earned Wilbur a share of the Bollingen Translation Prize for his critically-acclaimed work of this satiric take on religious hypocrisy.

Mr. Wilbur has given us a sound, modern, conversational poetry and has made Moliere's The Misanthrope brilliantly our own.--The New York Times Book Review

Joué pour la première fois le lendemain de l'exécution de Marie-Antoinette, Le Jugement dernier des rois met en scène le procès burlesque des autres rois et reines d'Europe: exhibés et enchaînés tels des animaux, contraints de se battre pour un tonneau de biscuits, et finalement anéantis par l'éruption spectaculaire d'un volcan. Tel est le contexte scandaleux--tragédie et farce à la fois--de la pièce la plus célèbre de la Révolution française, bien connue de tous les spécialistes de cette période. Jusqu'à maintenant, pourtant, il n'existait ni édition critique ni traduction anglaise de cet ouvrage historique. Notre édition bilingue fait revivre la pièce de Maréchal et la replace au centre des plus grands débats chez les historiens de la Révolution, traitant de justice, religion, commémoration, comédie, et propagande. Provocateur, facile à lire, et concis--parfaitement adapté aux étudiants d'un cours de français ou d'histoire--Le Jugement dernier des rois propose ainsi une introduction idéale à la période révolutionnaire et à ses principales controverses.

Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.

Miguel Mañara, written 1912, is undoubtedly Milosz's best known work. It is the story of the original Don Juan, who ended his days in a monastery following a disordered life. It is a play in six acts, which tells the story of a nobleman of that name. It is a story of dissatisfaction of the human heart with a life of sel sh instinctivity, a story of conversion. It is a story of how a true love opens a path towards the reconcili- ation of the heart with all things. It is a story of the journey of a human heart to holiness.

Considered by some to have contributed to the birth of modernism, Ubu Roi is a comical play that is at once a wild and bizarre work which overturned the cultural rules, norms, and conventions of its day. A precursor to the Theatre of the Absurd, the play satirizes the complacency, greed, and abuse of power by the ruling class. Largely a parody of Shakespeare's Macbeth as wells as in part several other Shakespearian plays, Ubu Roi follows the titular Ubu whose wife convinces him to murder the King of Poland and most of the Royal family. Through the use of dialogue that appears both obscene and childish Jarry evokes a deeper symbolic meaning. In addition to Ubu Roi, Alfred Jarry wrote two sequels, Ubu Cuckolded, and Ubu in Chains, which were never performed in his lifetime. According to Jarry this trilogy can be described by the philosophy of pataphysics or the science of imaginary solutions. This collection of plays exhibits Alfred Jarry's comical genius and established him as a progenitor of the modernist literary movement. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper and follows the translations of Beverley Keith and G. Legman.

Notre-Dame de Paris est un roman historique écrit par Victor Hugo en 1831. Situé à Paris au XVe siècle, il raconte l'histoire tragique de Quasimodo, le sonneur de cloches difforme de la cathédrale Notre-Dame, et de son amour impossible pour la belle gitane Esmeralda. Le roman explore les thèmes de la beauté, de la laideur, de l'amour et de la rédemption, tout en critiquant les injustices sociales et les abus de pouvoir de l'époque. À travers des personnages inoubliables et une intrigue complexe, Hugo peint un tableau vivant de la vie médiévale et célèbre la grandeur de la cathédrale Notre-Dame, symbole de l'âme de Paris.

The great French playwright Jean Anouilh (1910-87) wrote both pink bittersweet comedies and black tragic dramas. Jean Anouilh Five Plays--the finest English-language anthology of his works--crackles with both his sharp wit and his icy cynicism. In Antigone, his preeminent play and exemplar of his themes and style, he creates a disturbing world in which fate may be no more than a game of role-playing. Eurydice, The Ermine, The Rehearsal, Romeo and Jeannette are the other plays included in this edition.

Now in one volume, the works of the most successful international playwright of her generation (Vogue).

Yasmina Reza's plays reflect the razor sharp wit, social commentary, and impeccable comedic timing that have earned the praise of critics throughout the world, none more so than the Tony Award-winning Art, an eccentric and clever play of ideas that took the American theater community by storm. In this sly critique of contemporary relationships, Reza skillfully picks apart the friendship of three men via a bowl of olives and a white-on-white painting. Now translated into more than 30 languages, Art continues to be performed worldwide, even as Reza's other plays have garnered similar acclaim. Life x 3, Reza's most recent offering, again highlights her satirical wit as two couples face off in three different versions of the dinner from hell. Praised as compact, cool and clever by Christopher Isherwood of Variety, Reza uses the acidic exchanges of her characters to illuminate their inner desire for love and acceptance. Also included in this edition are two earlier plays, The Unexpected Man and Conversations After a Burial. Each elucidates the startling difference between public and private life, be it in the confines of a train compartment or a country estate in the aftermath of a loved one's passing.

Joué pour la première fois le lendemain de l'exécution de Marie-Antoinette, Le Jugement dernier des rois met en scène le procès burlesque des autres rois et reines d'Europe: exhibés et enchaînés tels des animaux, contraints de se battre pour un tonneau de biscuits, et finalement anéantis par l'éruption spectaculaire d'un volcan. Tel est le contexte scandaleux--tragédie et farce à la fois--de la pièce la plus célèbre de la Révolution française, bien connue de tous les spécialistes de cette période. Jusqu'à maintenant, pourtant, il n'existait ni édition critique ni traduction anglaise de cet ouvrage historique. Notre édition bilingue fait revivre la pièce de Maréchal et la replace au centre des plus grands débats chez les historiens de la Révolution, traitant de justice, religion, commémoration, comédie, et propagande. Provocateur, facile à lire, et concis--parfaitement adapté aux étudiants d'un cours de français ou d'histoire--Le Jugement dernier des rois propose ainsi une introduction idéale à la période révolutionnaire et à ses principales controverses.

Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.

Notre-Dame de Paris est un roman historique écrit par Victor Hugo en 1831. Situé à Paris au XVe siècle, il raconte l'histoire tragique de Quasimodo, le sonneur de cloches difforme de la cathédrale Notre-Dame, et de son amour impossible pour la belle gitane Esmeralda. Le roman explore les thèmes de la beauté, de la laideur, de l'amour et de la rédemption, tout en critiquant les injustices sociales et les abus de pouvoir de l'époque. À travers des personnages inoubliables et une intrigue complexe, Hugo peint un tableau vivant de la vie médiévale et célèbre la grandeur de la cathédrale Notre-Dame, symbole de l'âme de Paris.

With a calloused and lustful heart, Don Juan indulges his sexual appetites with boundless enthusiasm. Heedless of warnings both earthly and otherwise, history's most notorious romantic devil rushes headlong toward retribution in Moli re's sparkling comedy.

Richard Nelson's supple translation accommodates this transposition comfortably, without infidelity to the original.
Julius Novick, The Village Voice

Richard Nelson's translation...seems an improvement on previous drab, very English, English versions.
James Lardner, The Washington Post