The definitive guide to the life and work of Antonin ArtaudAntonin Artaud's theatre of cruelty is one of the most vital forces in world theatre, yet the concept is one of the most frequently misunderstood. In this incisive study, Albert Bermel looks closely at Artaud's work as a playwright, director, actor, designer, producer and critic, and provides a fresh insight into his ideas, innovations and, above all, his writings.Tracing the theatre of cruelty's origins in earlier dramatic conventions, tribal rituals of cleansing, transfiguration and exaltation, and in related arts such as film and dance, Bermel examines each of Artaud's six plays for form and meaning, as well as surveying the application of Artaud's theories and techniques to the international theatre of recent years.

Product Description: (Applause Books). Harpagon, the most desperate, scheming miser in literature, starves his servants, declines to pay them, cheats his own children if he can save (or make) a few coins, and when his hoard of gold disappears, insanely accuses himself of being the thief...read more

Offers a modern translation of Moliere's plays about a wife's revenge on her brutish husband and a wealthy merchant who aspires to be a fine gentleman

Two plays deal with a mischievous servant and an unrepentant playboy

Product Description: For Count Carlo Gozzi (1720-1806), theater was a fabulous world apart, in which human beings, statues, and animals change places by magical transformations. Gozzi's stage becomes a multiscenic home for adventures, loves, enmities, and dazzling visual effects...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Farce elicits an immediate, elemental response from all age levels, cutting across national and intellectual boundaries. It dates back to people’s first attempts to scoff in public at whatever their neighbors cherished in private: social prestige, eccentricities, virtues that are vices, friendships, and enmities...read more

Product Description: Certainty may give way to misgiving, happiness may become unease. Moment-to-moment changes often make actors and directors pause and ponder when deciding to perform a Shakespeare comedy. But this should not be the case, claims theatre scholar Albert Bermel...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Certainty may give way to misgiving, happiness may become unease. Moment-to-moment changes often make actors and directors pause and ponder when deciding to perform a Shakespeare comedy. But this should not be the case, claims theatre scholar Albert Bermel...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: (Applause Books). Albert Bermel writes comedies with a dark twist. The Times of London hailed Bermel's Workout as "one of the most expert pieces of comic writing to come out of America for some time." This volume includes nine witty, suspenseful plays six of them full length, three short...read more