Plays from the United Kingdom

TheatreBooks stocks plays in English from around the world and, of course, all plays published in Canada. We stock and sell plays from Samuel French Ltd., Dramatists Play Service and Dramatic Publishing Co., and the leading play publishers in Great Britain. We carry books on all aspects of theatre production, as well as opera and dance. If you don't find the title or playwright you are looking for, please stop by the store and ask, or contact us at action@theatrebooks.com, by phone at 416.922.7175, toll-free at 1.800.361.3414 or by fax at 416.922.0739.

On the Rocks
Amy Rosenthal
Based on true events, this is the story, and men, in love. An uplifting and passionate comedy about four friends trying to live together, two marriages struggling for survival and a group of writers striving for creativity in the midst of war. Softcover, 124 pp. $20.95.



The Grouch: A Modern version of Le Misanthrope
Ranjit Bolt
In this witty, cutting version of Le Misanthrope, Moliere's angry hero Alceste becomes Alan - a journalist, intellectual and free spirit - who finds himself adrift in a social whirl of false flattery and schmooze. In a world where nobody calls a spade a spade, how can the cantankerous but high-minded Alan secure the affections of Celia - a spoiled, feckless, fickle socialite, who happens to be the love of his life? Softcover, 80 pp. $20.95.

Doctor Faustus - Based on the A-Text
Christopher Marlowe, edited by Ros King
Doctor Faustus is a play about desire: for the best in life, for knowledge, power, material comfort, and influence. Faustus sells his soul to the devil hoping to learn the secrets of the universe, but is fobbed off with explanations which he knows to be inadequate. He is obsessed with fame, but his achievement as a devil-assisted celebrity magician is less substantial than it was previously as a scholar. Softcover, 128 pp. $16.50.

Piaf
Pam Gems
From the streets of Paris to worldwide fame, Edith Gassion (known to all as 'Piaf') continues to be remembered and revered for her exceptional voice and extraoridinary, troubled life. In this new version of Piaf, Pam Gems has reworked her classic 1978 play, vividly capturing the glamour and squalor, the rise and fall of this complex, fragile and enigmatic performer. Softcover, 77 pp. $20.95.

Roy Williams
Plays 3
Roy Williams' plays have brought the experience of black urban youth onto the stage, with titles like Fallout, Slow Time, Days of Significance, and Absolute Beginners. Softcover, 358 pp. $27.50.

Wesker's Love Plays
Arnold Wesker
Spanning three decades of impassioned and inspiring work, the three plays in this volume show in cross-section Arnold Wesker's development as one of the key figures of the late-twentieth-century drama. Softcover, 186 pp. $37.50.

One Million Tiny Plays About Britain
Craig Taylor
In these short evocative works based on overheard conversations in cities and towns across the country, Craig Taylor captures the state we're in with humour and pathos and perfect timing. Hardcover, 213 pp. $22.00.

Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat
Mark Ravenhill
Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat is an epic cycle of plays exploring the personal and political effect of war on modern life. Various cast sizes. Softcover, 225 pp. $21.95.

Gilgamesh
Derrek Hines
Gilgamesh is one of the most powerful men in Iraq. A king, a demi-God and a fearsome tyrant, he thrives on the shame and suffering of his subjects, robbing them of their innocence to fuel his lust. But when the Gods turn against him, an almighty battle of wills ensues, and a defiant Gilgamesh is forced to learn love, friendship, empathy and, in the end, mortality. M-7, F-4, extras. Softcover, 70 pp. $23.00.

Baghdad Wedding
Hassan Abdulrazzak
From cosmopolitan London to the chaos of war-ravaged Baghdad, this is the comic tale of three friends, torn between two worlds, and a wedding that goes horribly wrong. Softcover, 108 pp. $23.00.

Rough Crossings
Simon Schama & Caryl Phillips
Based on the book by Simon Schama and adapted for the stage by Caryl Phillips, Rough Crossings tells the heroic story of the resettlement of a group of former slaves in West Africa and of the bruising relationship between Peters and Clarkson, divided by the barriers of race, but united in their ambition for equality. M-12, F-4. Softcover, 126 pp. $23.00.

The History Boys: Audio Performance
Alan Bennett
At a boys' school in Sheffield, England, eight boys are being coached to nab acceptance at Oxford or Cambridge. It is the mid-eighties, and the main concern of the unruly bunch of bright teenagers is getting out, starting university, and starting life. This dramatization of Alan Bennett's phenomenally successful, Tony Award-winning play stars Richard Griffiths, Clive Merrison, and Frances de la Tour as part of the National Theatre cast. CD. $24.95.

Present Laughter
Noel Coward
At the centre of his own universe sits matinee idol Garry Essendine: suave, hedonistic and too old, says his wife, to be having numerous affairs. His line in harmless, infatuated debutantes is largely tolerated but playing closer to home is not. Just before he escapes on tour to Africa the full extent of his misdemeanors is discovered. And all hell breaks loose. M-5, F-6. Softcover, 113 pp. $16.50.


The Tiger in Winter: Six Contemporary Irish Plays
Edited by John Fairleigh
These six young writers won recognition for plays presented during the years of the Celtic Tiger, but the have no truck with the good-news stories. Focusing on the Irish male, they suggest that the burden of poverty may have lifted, but festering on is the emotional repression inherited from an authoritarian church and state. The hurt within individual lives is clearly explored, but the pathways to emotional liberation can be traced in the subtexts. Softcover, 350 pp. $20.95.

Howard Barker: Plays Four
Howard Barker
Howard Barker is one of the most significant and controversial dramatists of his time. His plays challenge, unsettle and expose. This anthology includes such titles as I Saw Myself, The Dying of Today, Found in the Ground, and, The Road, the House, the Road. Softcover, 270 pp. $35.50.

Mark Ravenhill Plays: 2
Mark Ravenhill
This collection contains: Mother Clap's Molly House, Product, The Cut, Citizenship, and Pool (No Water). Softcover, 323 pp. $21.95.

Joe Guy
Roy Williams
As a young man, Joseph is taunted by the cooler British-Caribbean kinds for his accent and his humility. Ditching his Ghanaian heritage, Joseph becomes Joe, and icon of urban Black identity. Premier league clubs, venal agents and one-night women all want a piece, but one night in a hotel room with the lovely Lauren and it all gets out of control. As the abyss opens, Joe discovers how much he has lost and how little of him remains. Softcover, 92 pp. $16.50.

England People Very Nice
Richard Bean
A riotous journey through four waves of immigration from the 17th century to today, as the French Huguenots, the Irish, the Jews and the Bangladeshis in turn enter the chaotic world of Bethnal Green. The emerging pattern shows that 'white flights' and anxiety over integration is anything but new. Softcover, 124 pp. $22.95.

The Wonderful World of Dissocia
Anthony Neilson
Lisa Jones is on a journey. It's a colourful and exciting off-kilter trip in search of one lost hour that has tipped the balance of her life. The inhabitants of the wonderful world she finds herself in - Dissocia - are a curious blend of the funny, the friendly and the brutal. Softcover, 156 pp. $22.95.

War Horse
Nick Stafford
At the outbreak of the First World War, Joey, young Albert's beloved horse, is sold to the cavalry and shipped to France. Caught up in enemy fire, fate takes Joey on an extraordinary odyssey, serving on both sides before finding himself alone in no man's land. But Albert cannot forget Joey and, still not enough to enlist, he embarks on a treacherous mission to find and bring him home. Softcover, 98 pp. $23.95.

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Rock 'N' Roll
Tom Stoppard
Rock 'n' Roll spans the years from 1968 to 1990 from the double perspective of Prague, where a rock 'n' roll band comes to symbolise resistance to the Communist regime, and of Cambridge where the verities of love and death are shaping the lives of three generations in the family of a Marxist philosopher. 5 F / 6 M. $19.00.

Blackbird
David Harrower
Fifteen years ago Una and Ray had a relationship. They haven't set eyes on each other since. Now, years later, she's found him again. M 1 / F 1. $11.99.

Last Easter
Byrony Lavery
June has a terrible secret. Gash has an outrageous plan. Leah is open to possibilities. And Joy is drinking to forget. When June's best friends unravel her mystery, the whisk her from London to Lourdes where she is thoroughly dunked in the reputedly healing waters. The four friends' lunatic pilgrimage is filled with laughing, singing, a drag act and more than a few bottles of good red wine. Last Easter is a funny, moving and provocative play about the true nature of friendship. Softcover, 126 pp. $19.00.

Some Kind of Bliss
Samuel Adamson
Small-time hack and seeker of minor adventure Rachel sets off down the Thames Path to Greenwich to interview Lulu for her tabloid's glossy supplement. But between London Bridge and the celebrity's mirrored hallway lies a series of unpredicted events. This is a play about how a walk on an everyday Wednesday can become an odyssey that turns your life upside down. Softcover, 52 pp. $19.00.

The City
Martin Crimp
Clair wants to be kissed - but not now - and certainly not by her husband. Chris wants to celebrate his new job by driving into the oncoming traffic. Jenny arrives to complain about the screaming children - but the garden's empty, and the key to the playroom's disappeared. Just what strange game is being played here? Three characters fight to make sense of a surreal and collapsing world. Softcover, 64 pp. $18.00.

Songs of Grace and Redemption
John Donnelly
In the city, there is who we are and who we want to be. Five desperate people make life-changing decisions to rescue themselves - and each other - through random acts of kindness. And urban fairy tale of house wine, home porn, maps, cats and heavy metal. Softcover, 87 pp. $19.00.

Intemperance
Lizzie Nunnery
It's 1854, a time of dizzying change. Liverpool's streets are teeming with merchants and new arrivals from all corners of the globe. Every day as the walls of St George's Hall grow higher, in the bowels of the city the poor of the cellar-slums dring away their fears. It's never their time and they know their place. Softcover, 105 pp. $19.00.

Nova Scotia
John Byrne
Thirty years since we last met him and Lucille in The Garden of Remembrance, Phil McCann faces the New Millenium with fortitude and good humour. The leading arts correspondent of the day is on her way to the far north to record a radio profile, which Phil is confident will relaunch his career as a painter and establish him once and for all as a colossus of contemporary Caledonian culture. Softcover, 100 pp. $18.00.

Flight Path & Undercarriage
David Watson
Jonathan's eighteen. Bright boy. Great future. People expect things...especially now that his dad's walked out, his mom's got her career and Danny needs looking after. Danny - his brother with Down's syndrome and a love of creative swearing. But Jonathan's best friend needs him too. It's hard work burgling houses all on your own... Softcover, 117 pp. $19.00.

Let Me Stand Alone: The Journals of Rachel Corrie
Rachel Corrie
How do we find our way in the world? How do our actions affect others? What do we owe the rest of humanity? These are the timeless questions eloquently posed by Rachel Corrie, a young American activist killed on March 16, 2003, as she tried to block the demolition of a Palestinian family home in the Gaza Strip. She was twenty-three years old. These are her thoughts, feelings, and ideas -- as expressed in her private journal. Softcover, 313 pp. $15.50.

tHe dYsFUnCKshOnalZ!
Mike Packer
In 1977, when punk was at its height, Billy Abortion's bandmates left him bleeding to death in a Copenhagen hotel room. In 2007, Billy is back from the dead and stacking shelves. There was no way tHe dYsFUnCKshOnalZ! would ever reform. Until now... Softcover, 82 pp. $19.50.

Gethsemane
David Hare
Nothing is more important to a modern political party than fund-raising. But the values of the donors can't always coincide with the professed beliefs of the party. And family scandal within the cabinet has the potential to throw both the money-raisers and the money-spenders into chaos. Softcover, 123 pp. $23.95.

Pitmen Painters
Lee Hall
In 1934, a group of Ashington miners and a dental mechanic hired a professor from Newcastle University to teach an art appreciation class. Unable to understand each other, they embarked on one of the most unusual experiments in British art as the pitmen learned to become painters. Softcover, 124 pp. $21.95.

The Walworth Farce
Edna Walsh
It's 11 o'clock in the morning in a council flat on the Walworth Road in London. In two hours' time, as is normal, three Irish men will have consumed six cans of Harp, fifteen crackers with spreadable cheese, ten pink biscuit wafers and one oven-cooked chicken with a strange blue sauce. In two hours' time, as is normal, five people will have been killed. Enda Walsh's tender and visceral play was commissioned and first performed by Druid in 2006. 3m, 1w. Softcover, 85 pp. $22.95.

The Pride
Alexi Kaye Campbell
Alternating between 1958 and 2008, The Pride examines changing attitudes to sexuality, looking at intimacy, identity, and the courage it takes to be who you really are. 3M, 1F. Softcover, 131 pp. $22.95.

Saint Joan
Bernard Shaw
Charting the meteoric rise and fall of Joan of Arc and her mission to drive the English from France, Shaw's Saint Joan draws directly on the medieval records to cut through the sentiment that characterized previous literary treatments of her story. A powerful example of a new kind of history play, its staging of dissent and social constraint, personal responsibility and female assertion, as well as fervent adherence to a cause, gave it a powerful modernity in its own day and continuing resonance in ours. M-22, F-2. Softcover, 186 pp. $16.50.

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Last modified February 12, 2009
Please note that all prices are in Canadian dollars. All prices are subject to change without notice.