This early experimental play illuminates the comic vision that informs all Shakespeare's later successes including his last great plays. Two pairs of lovers are forcibly parted and human fickleness is contrasted with constancy, reality with illusion, and the bonds of friendship with those of sexual attraction. The serious elements of Romance are fused with satire and burlesque as The Two Gentlemen of Verona examines the importance of identity with lucid charm and hilarious comedy.
Don’t scorn words. If the struggle needs weapons give it words, My Africa! Thami. Stones and petrol bombs can’t get inside those armoured cars. Words can. They can do something even more devastating than that … they can get inside the heads of those inside the armoured cars.” This powerful play by one of South Africa’s most famous playwrights delivers a forceful message to a modern world plagued by political and social conflict. Burning questions asked by those who lived through apartheid are as relevant today as they were thirty years ago. What is the best way to bring about political and social change? Violent action or transformation through words and ideas? Fugard’s play is about a school teacher who has invested all of his dreams for a better society, a better South Africa, in one of his pupils. The school teacher and the brilliant young man come into conflict with each other because they choose different solutions to their country’s educational and political problems. A moving play that will challenge South African learners to engage with universal questions about education, relationships, authority, politics and humanity.
Vyftien jaar lank kruip Muis al weg. En noudat die Karoo so droog is, wil haar man Kapok hul donkiekarretjie in Leeu-Gamka se rigting draai – die een plek wat Muis nooit weer wil sien nie, want dit is hier waar die wrede Miskiet vir haar wag om haar terug te kry. Klein Witpop is opgewonde. Dalk kan sy nou televisie kyk en skool toe gaan. Haar broer Fansie hoop daar sal meer kos vir hom en hul babasussie Sponsie wees. Maar die duiwel is los in Leeu-Gamka en hulle moet desperaat vlug op hul karretjie. Sonder dokumente wat wys jy bestaan, kan die polisie jou nie veel help nie. In Carol Campbell se senutergende roman word die onsigbare en nomadiese karretjiemense van die Groot-Karoo op spanningsvolle wyse op die voorgrond geplaas.
Hamlet's combination of violence and introspection is unusual among Shakespeare's tragedies. It is also full of curious riddles and fascinating paradoxes, making it one of his most widely discussed plays. Professor Hibbard's illuminating and original introduction explains the process by which variant texts were fused in the eighteenth century to create the most commonly used text of today. Drawing on both critical and theatrical history, he shows how this gusion makes Hamlet seem a much more 'problematic' play than it was when it originally appeared in the First Folio of 1623. The Oxford Shakespeare edition presents a radically new text, based on that First Folio, which printed Shakespeare's own revision of an earlier version. The result is a 'theatrical' and highly practical edition for students and actors alike.
