Best French Dramas & Plays Books
Here you will get Best French Dramas & Plays Books For you.This is an up-to-date list of recommended books.
1. No Exit and Three Other Plays
Author: by Jean-Paul Sartre
Published at: Vintage; Reissue edition (October 23, 1989)
ISBN: 978-0679725169
Four seminal plays by one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century. 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.
2. Cyrano de Bergerac (Signet Classics)
Author: by Edmond Rostand
Published at: Signet; Reissue edition (March 6, 2012)
ISBN: 978-0451531988
Regarded as one of the greatest dramas ever written, Cyrano de Bergerac is the story of the silver-tongued soldier whose unfortunate looks drive him to woo his love by speaking for his handsome but dull-witted rival. Cyrano de Bergerac occupies a unique place in the modern theater.
Deliberately disavowing realism and contemporary relevance, Edmond Rostand’s masterpiece represents a turning back in both time and spirit to an earlier age of high adventure and soaring idealism. Its magnificent hero, Cyranonoble of soul and grotesque in appearance, gallant Gascon soldier, brilliant wit, and timid lover, alternately comic, heroic, tragicrepresents one of the most challenging of all acting roles in its complexity and mercurial changes of mood.
From its original production to the present day, Cyrano de Bergerac has enjoyed a charmed existence on the stage, its unflagging pace of action and eloquence of language enchanting critics and public alike. Here, in a superlative translation, is the ultimate triumph of the great French romantic traditiona work which, in the words of the French critic Lematre, prolongs, unites and blendsthree centuries of comic fantasy and moral grace.
3. No Exit
Author: by Paul Bowles
Published at: Samuel French, Inc. (January 1, 1958)
ISBN: 978-0573613050
Fantasy / Characters: 2 male, 2 femaleScenery: InteriorNo 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
4. Caligula and Three Other Plays
Author: by Albert Camus
Published at: Vintage; Revised ed. edition (February 12, 1962)
ISBN: 978-0394702070
Also includes The Misunderstanding, State of Siege, and The Just Assassins.
5. Art: A Play
Author: by Yasmina Reza
Published at: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Main edition (March 6, 1997)
ISBN: 978-0571190140
The Tony Award-winning play that focuses on the meaning of art (in the form of a solid white painting) as well as the meaning of friendship, to both the man who bought the painting and the two friends who come to see it.”
6. A Season in the Congo (The French List)
Author: by Aimé Césaire
Published at: Seagull Books; 1st edition (March 5, 2020)
ISBN: 978-0857427571
This play by renowned poet and political activist Aime Csairerecounts the tragic death of Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of the Congo Republic and an African nationalist hero. A Season in the Congofollows Lumumba’s efforts to free the Congolese from Belgian rule and the political struggles that led to his assassination in 1961.
Csaire powerfully depicts Lumumba as a sympathetic, Christ-like figure whose conscious martyrdom reflects his self-sacrificing humanity and commitment to pan-Africanism. Born in Martinique and educated in Paris, Csaire was a revolutionary artist and lifelong political activist, who founded the Martinique Independent Revolution Party.
Csaire’s ardent personal opposition to Western imperialism and racism fuels both his profound sympathy for Lumumba and the emotional strength of A Season in the Congo. Now rendered in a lyrical translation by distinguished scholar Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Csaire’s play will find a new audience of readers interested in world literature and the vestiges of European colonialism.
7. Philosophy in the Boudoir: Or, The Immoral Mentors (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
Author: by Marquis de Sade
Published at: Penguin Classics; Penguin Classics Deluxe ed. edition (October 31, 2006)
ISBN: 978-0143039013
Philosophy in the Bedroom accounts the lascivious education of a privileged young lady at the dawn of womanhood. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines.
Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
8. The Gods of Carnage (Faber Drama)
Author: by Yasmina Reza
Published at: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Main edition (April 28, 2009)
ISBN: 978-0571242580
What happens when two sets of parents meet up to deal with the unruly behavior of their children? A calm and rational debate between grown-ups about the need to teach kids how to behave properly? Or a hysterical night of name-calling, tantrums, and tears before bedtime?
Christopher Hampton’s translation of Yasmina Reza’s sharp-edged new play The God of Carnage premiered at Wyndham’s Theatre, London, in March 2008 and at Bernard B. Jacobs Theater, New York City, in March 2009. The International Herald Tribune calls it “an expert piece of stagecraft, and savagely funny.”
9. The Mother and The Father (Faber Drama)
Author: by Florian Zeller
Published at: Faber & Faber; Main edition (March 14, 2017)
ISBN: 978-0571327256
The MotherAnne loved the time in her life when she prepared breakfast each morning for her two young children. Years later, spending hours alone, Anne convinces herself that her husband is having an affair. If only her son were to break-up with his girlfriend.
He would return home and come down for breakfast. She would put on her new red dress and they would go out. The Mother, in this English translation by Christopher Hampton, was commissioned by the Ustinov Studio, Theatre Royal, Bath, and premiered in May 2015.
Florian Zeller’s The Mother was awarded the Moliere Award for Best Play 2011. The Father’A wonderfully peculiar, quietly stunning depiction of dementia… A controlled, unforgettable portrait of losing your memory.’ Times’A vivid, lucent translation by Christopher Hampton.’ Observer’One of the most acute, absorbing and distressing portraits of dementia I’ve ever seen.’ Daily Telegraph’A play that constantly confounds expectations and works almost like a thriller, with a sinister Pinteresque edge.’ GuardianThe Father, in this English translation by Christopher Hampton, was commissioned by the Ustinov Studio, Theatre Royal, Bath and premiered in October 2014.
10. The Misanthrope and Tartuffe
Author: by Moliere
Published at: Mariner Books; First edition (October 20, 1965)
ISBN: 978-0156605175
Two classic plays translated by a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet into English verse. In The Misanthrope, society itself is indicted and the impurity of its critic’s motives is exposed. In Tartuffe, the bigoted and prudish Orgon falls completely under the power of the wily Tartuffe.
Introductions by Richard Wilbur.
11. Phèdre: A Play
Author: by Jean Racine
Published at: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (February 28, 2000)
ISBN: 978-0374526160
A lean, high-tension version of a classic tragedy. The myth of Phaedra is one of the most powerful in all of classical mythology. As dramatized by the French playwright Jean Racine (1639-99), the dying Queen’s obsessive love for her stepson, Hippolytus, and the scrupulously upright Hippolytus’ love for the forbidden beauty Aricia has come to be known as one of the great stories of tragic infatuation, a tale of love strong enough to bring down a kingdom.
In this “tough, unrhyming avalanche of a translation” (Paul Taylor, The Independent), Hughes replaces Racine’s alexandrines with an English verse that serves eloquently to convey the passions of his protagonists. The translation was performed to acclaim in London in 1998, and the London production, starring Diana Rigg, was staged in 1999 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.”We are still catching up with Ted Hughes’s gift for narrative verse after his Tales from Ovid,” one English critic observed after the London premiere.
“Little needs to happen on stage when there’s a swirling action-packed disaster movie-riddled with sex and violence-in Hughes’s free verse.”
12. Learn French With Short Stories – Fifteen Beginner Stories With Parallel French and English Text (French Edition)
Author: by French Hacking
Published at: Independently published (March 1, 2021)
ISBN: 979-8594345713
Do you want to learn French without feeling like studying? Do you want to learn idioms and speak like a real Parisien? Do you want to read French stories without having to flick through a dictionary every other word? Imagine how impressed your friends and family will be and how awesome you’ll feel once you’re able to have a fluent conversation with a native French speaker.
Imagine sitting in a nice caf in Paris sipping on your coffee and enjoying a croissant when someone strikes up a conversation and you’re able to hold your weight the whole time. What if this wasn’t a dream and became a reality?
French Hacking’s 15 Short Stories will allow you to progress your French and learn what and how to talk to sound like a native. Learning French doesn’t have to be difficult. Most of what you learn in class and grammar books are rarely used in real life scenarios.
Stop wasting your time and begin learning more efficiently. Learn what to say and start conversing, even if you’re a complete beginner! French can seem like a daunting language with loads of different conjugations, rules, and exceptions. By repetitively seeing and learning simple sentence structures and phrases, you’ll better understand the language and have the essential knowledge to improve your French!
13. As You Like It (Signet Classics)
Author: by William Shakespeare
Published at: Signet; Revised ed. edition (April 1, 1998)
ISBN: 978-0451526786
The Signet Classics edition of William Shakespeare’s comedic play about two enduring human illusionsthe dream of a simple life and the ideal of romantic love. Banished from her uncle’s court, young princess Rosalind disguises herself as a farmer and encounters a memorable cast of charactersincluding her love Orlandoin the Forest of Arden in this witty, subversive comedy.
This revised Signet Classics edition includes unique features such as: An overview of Shakespeare’s life, world, and theater A special introduction to the play by the editor, Albert Gilman Selections from Thomas Lodge’s Rosalynd, the source from which Shakespeare derived As You Like It Dramatic criticism from Arthur Colby Sprague, Helen Gardener, and others A comprehensive stage and screen history of notable actors, directors, and productions Text, notes, and commentaries printed in the clearest, most readable text And more…
14. The Cid, Cinna, the Theatrical Illusion (Penguin Classics)
Author: by Pierre Corneille
Published at: Penguin Classics; Reissue edition (January 30, 1976)
ISBN: 978-0140443127
This volume compiles three of Corneille’s most lauded plays: The Cid, Corneille’s masterpiece set in medieval Spain, was the first great work of French classical drama; Cinna, written three years later in 1641, is a tense political drama; and The Theatrical Illusion, an earlier work, is reminiscent of Shakespeare’s exuberant comedies.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
15. Artaud Anthology
Author: by Antonin Artaud
Published at: City Lights Publishers; 2nd ed. edition (January 1, 2001)
ISBN: 978-0872860001
“I am the man,” wrote Artaud, “who has best charted his inmost self.” Antonin Artaud was a great poet who, like Poe, Holderlin, and Nerval, wanted to live in the infinite and asked that the human spirit burn in absolute freedom.
To society, he was a madman. Artaud, however, was not insane but in luciferian pursuit of what society keeps hidden. The man who wrote Van Gogh the Man Suicided by Society raged against the insanity of social institutions with insight that proves more prescient with every passing year.
Today, as Artaud’s vatic thunder still crashes above the “larval confusion” he despised, what is most striking in his writings is an extravagant lucidity. This collection gives us quintessential Artaud on the occult, magic, the theater, mind and body, the cosmos, rebellion, and revolution in its deepest sense.
Antoine Marie Joseph Artaud, better known as Antonine Artaud, was a French dramatist, poet, essayist, actor, and theatre director, widely recognized as one of the major figures of twentieth-century theatre and the European avant-garde.Jack Hirschman (b. December 13, 1933, in New York, NY) is a poet and social activist who has written more than 50 volumes of poetry.
