Pornography (Student Editions) - Softcover

Simon Stephens

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1408179857 ISBN 13: 9781408179857

Publisher: Methuen Drama, 2014

Synopsis

Pornography looks at the events of the first week of July 2005 (the G8 summit, Live 8, the announcement of the 2012 Olympics and the 7/7 bombings) through the perspectives of eight anonymous individuals, including a terrorist. The play can be performed by any number of actors with the scenes presented in any order. This flexibility means that it is ideal for student groups: containing four monologues, two duologues and fifty-two self-contained anecdotal speeches.

This Student Edition offers a study of the meaning, context and performance choices available in this subtle and political play. The in-depth commentary explores the play's themes, its kaleidoscopic structure and the play's production history, looking at both the German and UK premieres. The editor, Jacqueline Bolton, incorporates previously unpublished interviews with Simon Stephens and the directors and dramaturgs associated with the early productions. The commentary reveals the play's performance possibilities, as well as discussing its accomplished form, innovative structure and compassionate impetus. It also includes a chronology of the playwright's life and work, an introduction giving the background to the play, commentary on themes, characters, language and style, notes on individual words and phrases in the text, questions for further study and bibliography and further reading.

About this title

Product Description:

Rare Book

Review:

'To call Simon Stephen's Pornography specifically a play about the July 7 bombings in London would be to do it a disservice. Though it deals with events leading up to the atrocities oft hat fateful day, this is unmistakeably a state of the nation play in the fullest sense. One which looks at what it means to be British today and the culture of displacement we live in with soulful mourning.' Alan Chadwick, Metro (London), 5.8.08 'Stephens, who has already written the best play of the year (Harper Regan, at the National) has come up with another cracker - one that searches for new forms to say new things. He observes his characters with an almost forensic detachment and yet he makes us love them, too... This is a play of grace and terror.' Lyn Gardner, Guardian, 5.8.08 'In Simon Stephens' new play the build up of everyday detritus of contemporary mass culture, from coffee brands to the disposable, detached sexuality of pornography, is insidious.' Steve Cramer, List, 7.8.08

About this edition

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1408179857
• ISBN 13: 9781408179857
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 152