Drama Books - Page 4

The Twits (Plays for Children)

Roald Dahl

List Price: $12.40 By: Puffin Books Amazon Marketplace: 16 new & used starting at $7.21

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 130 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

An Awful Book 1 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I have read most of Roald Dahl's books and this has got to be the worst of them. The plot goes no where fast and the characters are indeed twits like the title implies. Good thing it was so short or there would be no way I would have finished it ever!!!!! I hate this book don't go near it with a 39 and 1/2 foot pole.

The Twits 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Did anyone ever play a joke on you? Well, I'm pretty sure Mr. and Mrs. Twit, from the book The Twits by Roald Dahl, had a lot of experience with that. This book is about a married couple that nobody likes. Mr. and Mrs. Twit are the smelliest, nastiest, and ugliest people in the world. Mr. Twit is the hairiest faced man. He has hair everywhere except his forehead. Mrs. Twit wasn't ugly at first but then she got uglier and uglier as the years went by. She is always negative toward people and, the expression on her face showed it and that's why she became ugly.
Their hobbies are to play mean and nasty jokes on each other and catch birds to put them in their pies. Some problems are that they think everything is a joke and they are rude to everybody in their town. All they do is play jokes on each other. Mrs. Twit has one fake eye that she always puts in Mr. Twit's beers so he could get scared. Mr. Twit is the person that always wins in the jokes. There are different kinds of jokes: funny, nasty, and even really mean ones. Since she uses a cane, Mr. Twit started putting little pieces of wood (no thicker than a penny) to make her cane taller. Then he told her she was getting the shrinks. Her reaction was, "Is there a cure?" Then Mr. Twit told her that she would be getting smaller and smaller until there was nothing left of her.
Mr. Twit is always putting super sticky glue on the trees to catch birds to put them in their pies. Since they make the monkeys do everything up side down the monkeys got mad. The monkeys and birds decided to get their revenge on Mr. and Mrs. Twit. They make it look as if Mr. and Mrs. Twit were up-side down. They put everything on the ceiling then when they came in they started to panic and saying "We are up-side down!" "HELP!"
I liked this book because it was hilarious. While I was reading the book it started getting more and more interesting and funny. One way this book was funny is that they play jokes on each other. One of my favorite parts was when the monkeys and birds got their revenge, after they got tired of getting pushed around by the Twits. I think you would really like this book if you are a person that likes to joke around. Therefore I recommend this book to people that love comedy. If you do like comedy I think this is the best book to read.

Editorial Review:

This is a collection of six playlets, based on Roald Dahl's story, "The Twits", highlighting the key points in the story. Some can be acted by groups of children while others only need a couple of actors.

A Christmas Carol

Christopher Schario

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 159 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The closest adaptation to the novel yet written for stage! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I saw this script produced at the Castle Museum in York during its first run. It's the most faithful adaptation I have ever seen of A Christmas Carol, which is one of my favourite novels.

Highly recommended.

Without equal 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Everyone has their favorite version of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Make this dramatic retelling yours. At about 2 hours, its perfect for listening in the car while running around during the holidays or on your MP3 player while putting up Christmas lights. I plan on listening to it every year from now on. Patrick Stewart gives voice to every character, including the narration, and gives the kind of performance which I have come to expect from an actor of his immense talents.

I ordered 30 copies! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I ordered 30 copies of this Dover Thrift Edition of A Christmas Carol and used them as stocking stuffers at work.

This is a great item for the price, lower than some greeting cards, and I suspect appreciated a tad more than the usual overflow of candy around at holiday time!

Editorial Review:

An abridgment of the classic story with all the characters depicted as animals.

War and Peace

List Price: $26.95 By: Nick Hern Books Amazon Marketplace: 14 new & used starting at $14.69

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Subjects -> History -> Russia

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 287 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

An amazing novel 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Leo Tolstoy combines philosophy and history for one of the best fictional stories about a historical event that I have read. The plot is captivating from the beginning. A glimpse at the high society of Russia in the early 1800's followed by the story of the lives of the families at that gathering. The story of the Rostov's captures all the human emotions. The excitement of Nikolay at his first battle, only to be overcome by cowardice. The maturing of Nikolay into a courageous soldier. To see the same cycle beginning in his brother Petya. The life and death experiences of Prince Andrey and Pierre that shed light into the character of men. But throughout this story, Tolstoy inserts his cynical view of historians and government. Tolstoy does not love Napolean or think of him as a great commander, nor does Tolstoy give him credit for leading the French army to victories. Additionally, he criticizes the actions of government officials and military leaders for their brutality to their citizens and soldiers. I can only begin to describe the plot and the multiple story lines in War and Peace, but I assure you this novel will captivate you. The brilliance of Tolstoy is demonstrated in this novel and I highly recommend it.

Editorial Review:

Few would dispute the claim of "War and Peace" to be regarded as the greatest novel in any language. This massive chronicle, to which Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) devoted five whole years shortly after his marriage, portrays Russian family life during and after the Napoleonic war. Tolstoy's faith in life and his piercing insight lend universality to a work which holds the mirror up to nature as truly as those of Shakespeare or Homer.

Journey to the Centre of the Earth (Take Part)

Jules Verne

By: Ward Lock Educational Co Ltd Amazon Marketplace: 1 new & used starting at $79.87

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 128 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Recommended as a faithful translation 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

If you are looking for a English translation of JTTCOTE that is faithful to Verne's French one, this one (and a couple others) has been recommended to me by members of the North American Jules Verne Society ([...]). Verne has been poorly translated since the novels were first published and he has received unfair reviews based on those poor translations. I think we owe it to this brilliant man to at least read his books the way he intended them!

Journey to the Center review 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I bought this book for my 9 year old son and he really liked it.

ending was a dissapointment 1 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I'm a dissapointed ten year old rating this book. Up until the end it
Was probably one of the best books I've ever read. It was full of adventure and excitement, but then I got to the end. The book did not live up to it's name. It would be more appropriately called "Journey Almost to the Centre of the Earth. I recommend this book only to people who like major dissapointments.

Editorial Review:

Through the eyes of young Gilbert, a peasant boy who Robin takes under his wing, readers will meet the world's most famous outlaw as he does battle with the corrupt Sheriff of Nottingham and his evil friends.

A Raisin in the Sun

Lorraine Hansberry

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 139 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

What Happens To A Dream Deferred? 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Produced in 1959, A RAISIN IN THE SUN was the first Broadway play written by a black woman: Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965), a memorable author who based the central story on an incident that occurred in her own family and which eventually evolved into a landmark Supreme Court ruling in 1940 as Hansberry v. Lee.

The play presents us with three generations of the Younger family: the widowed matriarch Lena; her son Walter Lee and daughter Beaneatha; and Walter's wife Ruth and their son Travis. The family resides in a semi-slum apartment building on the south side of Chicago in the 1950s, where each tries to rise above the difficulties of their enviroment and the many social limitations imposed upon African-Americans at that time. But there is hope on the horizon: Lena is about to receive insurance money from her husband's death.

Unfortunately, instead of pulling the family together, the money actually drives them apart. Each member lays claim to it in some form or fashion. Lena dreams of owning her own home; daughter Bea is attending medical school and needs money to finish her degree; and most especially Walter Lee dreams of owning a liquior store. Bit by bit the pressure chips away at the family, already strained by years of frustration, and explodes at the play's climax--although not precisely in a way that one might foresee. When the explosion arrives it does not shatter the family; it unexpectedly reaffirms it.

When I review a play, I like point out that plays are not really intended to be read. They are intended to be seen on stage, where performing artists and designers breathe life into the lines and bring force to the story and its themes. This is true of every play. It may be especially true of A Raisin In The Sun, which on paper feels somewhat dry and slightly preachy. But I have seen the play performed--and let me assure that you that it brings the audience to hysterical laughter, painful tears, a sense of deep outrage, and an affection for its characters that few other modern plays can match. It is indeed a brilliant work and a great classic of 20th century American theatre.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

Editorial Review:

When it was first produced in 1959, A Raisin in the Sun was awarded the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for that season and hailed as a watershed in American drama. A pioneering work by an African-American playwright, the play was a radically new representation of black life. "A play that changed American theater forever."--The New York Times.

A Lesson Before Dying

Romulus Linney, Ernest J Gaines

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 496 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

6 cassettes / approx. 8 hours
Unabridged
Read by Jay Long


Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction

"A Lesson Before Dying reconfirms Ernest J. Gaines's position as an important American writer."
--Boston Globe

A Lesson Before Dying is set in a small Cajun community in the late 1940s.  Jefferson, a young black man, is an unwitting party to a liquor store shootout in which three men are killed; the only survivor, he is convicted of murder and sentenced to death.  Grant Wiggins, who left his hometown for the university, has returned to the plantation school to teach.  As he struggles with his decision whether to stay or escape to another state, his aunt and Jefferson's godmother persuade him to visit Jefferson in his cell and impart his learning and his pride to Jefferson before his death.  In the end, the two men forge a bond as they both come to understand the simple heroism of resisting -- and defying -- the unexpected.

Ernest J.. Gaines brings to this novel the same rich sense of place, the same deep understanding of the human psyche, and the same compassion for a people and their struggle that have informed his previous, highly praised works of fiction.

"Enormously moving . . . Gaines unerringly evokes the place and time about which he writes." -- Los Angeles Times

Leaves of Grass: Library Edition

Walt Whitman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 69 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

What book will you get when you order this? 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

There seems to be some confusion, both in the editorial reviews and the customer reviews, about what edition is being referred to in this listing. the first editorial review correctly discusses the first edition as shorter and "less bloated" than the deathbed edition. however, the rest of the reviews seem to discuss either edition indiscriminately.

the two are effectively different books. the cover shown is of the first edition including an illuminating essay by malcolm cowley--that's certainly the edition I prefer, and I hope thats what you would get if you ordered this.

Editorial Review:

Leaves of Grass, first published in 1855, contained twelve long untitled poems, but Whitman continued to expand it throughout his life. Whitman's poetry was unprecedented in its unapologetic joy in the physical and its inextricable link to the spiritual. As Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote to him: "I am very happy in reading [Leaves of Grass], as great power makes us happy ... I find incomparable things said incomparably well, as they must be."

Macbeth (Folger Shakespeare Library)

William Shakespeare

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Folger is a good series 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

It would be ridiculous for someone to come on here and give Bill a bad review. When a person writes a review on a Shakespeare play, Shakespeare is not on trial, the reviewer is. So, I have no comments on the play, just the series. This is the second Shakespeare work I have read out of the Folger Library series. The running commentary and essay at the end of the play are well done and beneficial. If you enjoy reading Shakespeare, but find the archaic language hard to grasp at times, this is a good series for you.

Editorial Review:

Each edition includes:

• Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play

• Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play

• Scene-by-scene plot summaries

• A key to famous lines and phrases

• An introduction to reading Shakespeare's language

• An essay by an outstanding scholar providing a modern perspective on the play

• Illustrations from the Folger Shakespeare Library's vast holdings of rare books

Essay by Susan Snyder

The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., is home to the world's largest collection of Shakespeare's printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs. For more information, visit www.folger.edu.

Romeo and Juliet (Folger Shakespeare Library)

William Shakespeare

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 29 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Can Love Conquer All? 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Innocent love is the most pure... and the sight of those who are in that beautiful whirlwind of its hypnotic clutches is a sight to behold.

Is it true? "Is youth wasted on the young."

Sometimes, sometimes not.

Romeo and Juliet is the most known western love story of all time.

Why?

This is not an easy question to answer, however, personally, I would never go back to those extremes of pure love; that game playing, jealousy, love-making so innocent,(wonderful) and the relationship inevitably ending in tragedy.

What makes this 500 year old love story one of a kind is its "truth", that we are essentially envious beings, and pure love is something we all either unconsciously or consciously yearn for...and attempt to destroy.

Shakespeare was a clever fellow: with the sacrifice of these two lover's, at last, the feuding families ended their years of fighting... the Montague's & Capulet's. Peace fell upon Verona.

Does true love always end in tragedy?

A good question.

Shakespeares' classic is considered a "love story"; but the Bard revealed pure love's true irony...young love so pure, so intense, so true, the god's become envious and tragedy is pure love's ultimate end.

Very sad, but very true.

As the cliche' goes:

"Nothing ventured nothing gained."

Re-read this beautiful story and reflect that true love just might conquer all.

Editorial Review:

Each edition includes:

• Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play
• Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play
• Scene-by-scene plot summaries
• A key to famous lines and phrases
• An introduction to reading Shakespeare's language
• An essay by an outstanding scholar providing a modern perspective on the play
• Illustrations from the Folger Shakespeare Library's vast holdings of rare books

The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., is home to the world's largest collection of Shakespeare's printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs. For more information, visit www.folger.edu.

Prince of Fire (Gabriel Allon Series, Number 5)

Daniel Silva

By: Penguin Group Amazon Marketplace: 10 new & used starting at $7.50

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 71 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Another Engrossing Silva Read 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Silva can always be counted on to deliver a taut, fast-moving yet nuanced thriller and this is no exception. Hero Gabriel Allon sets out, somewhat reluctantly, to to avenge a massive, ugly bombing in Rome and in so doing, is forced to consider why he does what he does. In this book, as in his other Allon books, Silva ties the plot into the historic troubles between Israel and the Palestinians and ably reflects the complexities that motivate both sides. Allon is a believeable hero, now aging. Will Silva let him fade into the sunset? Doubtful, although Silva is quite capable of penning compelling novels that don't rely on this worthy hero. All in all, a good thriller. Your time won't be wasted on this one.

Explosive Artistic Ability!! Silva's Best Allon to Date 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

When you read a review saying that Daniel Silva can flat out write, believe the hype! Silva can really write, and "Prince of Fire" proves just that. Another reviewer said that he didn't think Silva would raise the bar with this one, and that he was wrong. That's accurate enough, because I felt the same way. If somebody were to tell me that Daniel Silva isn't up to snuff, I'd be laughing for a long time at you.

So, what kind of situation can Daniel Silva put Gabriel Allon into this time? Well, look no further then the likes of Ari Shamron and Lev. Lev says move, and Gabriel calls some critical shots in this lethal game of chess! And when check-mate seems so far away, you better check your king and queen, because Gabriel will find the move that you don't see coming. This is a whole new hunt, and the question is, who's being hunted? He also deals with issues concerning his wife, and coming to terms with it altogether. In some ways, he becomes more of a leader among men then he thought possible. And the stakes just get higher. If you ever thought of "Daniel and the Lion's Den," just think of the possibilities.

This is by far the best that Silva has offered up concerning Gabriel Allon! I mean, WOW!! And I still have "The Messenger," as well as a couple of others to go in this series. Does that mean I'll be looking forward to his next offering? You bet! This was an explosion of Daniel Silva's very best, and it'll sure be a tough one to beat!

Editorial Review:

Gabriel Allon faces his most determined enemy-and greatest challenge-in the stunning novel from the world-class practitioner of spy fiction.