Replay: Classic Modern Drama Reimagined [Paperback]

Replay: Classic Modern Drama Reimaginedspans over a century of great theatre to explore how iconic plays have been adapted and versioned by later writers to reflect or dissect the contemporary zeitgeist.

Starting withA Doll's House, Ibsen's much-reprised masterpiece of marital relations from 1879, Toby Zinman explores what made the play so controversial and shocking in its day before tracing how later reimaginings have reworked Ibsen's original. The spine of plays then includes such landmark works as Strindberg'sMiss Julie, Oscar Wilde's comicThe Importance of Being Earnest, Chekhov'sThree SistersandUncle Vanya, Hansberry'sA Raisin in the Sun, the Rattigan centenary revivals, Thornton Wilder'sOur Town, ultimately arriving at Beckett'sWaiting for Godot. Taking each modern play as the starting point, Zinman explores the diverse renderings and reworkings by subsequent playwrights and artists including prominent directors and their controversial productions as well as acknowledging reworkings in film, opera and ballet.Through the course of this groundbreaking study we discover not only how theatrical styles have changed but how society's attitude towards politics, religion, money, gender, sexuality and race have radically altered over the course of the century. In turnReplayreveals how theatre can serve as both a reflection of our times and a provocation to them.

Toby Zinmanis Professor of English, University of the Arts, Philadelphia, USA, and theatre critic for thePhiladelphia InquirerandVariety.

Acknowledgements
INTRODUCTION
Georg B?chner
Woyzeck
Notable Productions and Replays

PART ONE: You can be better!
1. Henrik Ibsen
A Doll's House
Replays
Hedda Gabler
Replays

2. George Bernard Shaw
Pygmalion
Replays

3. Bertolt Brecht
Mother Courage and Her Children
Repll“B