Stephens Plays: 4 - (Contemporary Dramatists) by Simon Stephens (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Four plays inspired by and originating on the European stage from one of Britain's most important playwrights.

Three Kingdoms was presented at Teater NO99 in Tallinn, Estonia on 17 September 2011, before opening at the Munich Kammerspiele, Germany, on 15 October 2011. 'An inconsolable mood of dread, abandon, violence and suspicion lurks beneath the show's skin of arty insouciance, and at times the script attains a lyrical pitch of accusation against the West that quite overrides the flippancy. There's something of value here.' Daily Telegraph;

The Trial of Ubu premiered at the Schauspielhaus Essen in a co-production with the Toneelgroep Amsterdam. 'The play certainly gets at the banality of evil, and evokes the slow, sometimes dull, often uncertain slog of justice.' Sunday Times.

Subtitled 'A Play For Young People', Morning was developed in partnership between the Lyric Hammersmith, London, and the Junges Theater, Göttingen. The Financial Times described it as 'theatrically daring and uncompromising';

Carmen Disruption, a reimagining of Bizet's opera, premiered at the Deutsche Spielhaus in spring, 2014, before its UK premiere at the Almeida, London, in April 2015. 'You can't help but be moved by the circumstances facing the five main characters. There's an understanding and a compassion amid the bleakness. And a fierce sense that something needs to change.' Guardian;

About the Author

Olivier Award winner Simon Stephens is one of Britain's best-loved playwrights. The author of more than twenty stage plays, including Punk Rock, Port, Three Kingdoms and Pornography, as well as the celebrated adaptation of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, he is a former tutor on the Royal Court Young Writers Programme. Awards include the Pearson Award for Best New Play, 2001, for Port; Olivier Award for Best New Play for On the Shore of the Wide World, 2005; Best Foreign Playwright, as voted by German critics in Theater Heute's annual poll, 2007; the Critics' Awards for Theatre in Scotland for Best New Play, 2008 for Pornography; and the Olivier Award for Best New Play, 2013, for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.