The first collection of plays of one of Scotlands best-known contemporary dramatistsEUROPE is set in a railway station at an unnamed border town where old and new Europeans weave a tale of love; loss and longing. "Fierce; compassionate; mightily ambitious drama...there is the sharp; analytic intelligence; the crackling inventiveness of a real writer buzzing about this gripping play" ScotsmanTHE ARCHITECT charts the rise and fall of Leo Black; once an idealistic and idolised designer; whose magnificent visions are now crumbling; along with his family; in the light of grubby reality. "Provides convincing evidence of David Greigs confident transition from a dramatist of promise to one of stature" Independent.Lyrical; soulful and darkly funny; THE COSMONAUTS LAST MESSAGE weaves together the stories of a fraught Scottish couple whose TV is on the blink; a Norwegian UN peace negotiator; a young prostitute; a French UFO researcher; a pregnant police woman and two forgotten Cosmonauts who sadly orbit the planet."The most important playwright to have emerged north of the border in years" Scotsman
#213171 in eBooks 2013-06-13 2013-06-13File Name: B00D1Z59Q6
Review
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. YES! A real pleasure to read in English.By SioguaIts so nice to have an updated translation of Schillers "Maria Stuart" - a play I really enjoy reading in German but have usually been disappointed with in English. The other English versions Im referring to are the older free online ones (very nice that they are free; but the language is outdated!).1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Definitely a Fictional AccountBy Eileen CunninghamI was led to this play in my search for a fictional account of the relationship between Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I of England; hoping to find something with a literary quality. Schillers play fills that bill; though it is too far from historical fact to serve as an introduction for the middler-schoolers for whom I am searching. Schiller (d. 1805) was apparently looking for a historical topic with psychological overtones; which he certainly did find in this tale of sixteenth-century Britain. Most fictional accounts of the real-life drama between these two queens are written from a romantic; Scottish point of view and portray Mary as the beautiful; passionate; and tolerant queen horribly wronged by the unfeeling calculations of her cousin Elizabeth; and some have viewed Schillers play in the same vein. However; Marys character is equivocal in this play. She is viewed as both a tragic figure as well as a conniving plotter. Furthermore; Elizabeth is portrayed much more as a plaything of the powerful nobles and advisers around her--Burleigh and Leicester (her one-time favorite) chief among them. At the end of the play; Mary is dead; Elizabeth maintains it was not her wish to have it so (though she did sign the document ordering the execution); and she is left alone on the stage; a sad figure who seems to have been totally outplayed by the machinations and convictions of others; including her nagging populace demanding Marys blood. I found this an interesting twist.I understand that; in his exploration of Elizabeths judicial murder of Mary; Schiller was influenced by Aristotles concept of voluntary and involuntary transactions and the role of the judiciary in restoring balance. Richard Posner (1990) has explained it this way: "(1) People injured by wrongful conduct should have the right to activate a corrective machinery administered by judges; and (2) give no weight to the character or social status of the victim and the injurer." Thus; the decision to execute Mary was taken to restore balance after Mary was involved with plots to murder Elizabeth; irregardless of the fact that both parties were monarchs and the destiny of kingdoms was involved.I must hasten to add that Schiller plays fast and loose with history in the writing of this play; and one should not take it for a literary depiction of actual facts. He creates a face-to-face meeting between Elizabeth and Mary in the woods near Fotheringhay Castle; where Mary was imprisoned; while the irony of history is that these two women never actually met. In addition; the Babington Plot by the Catholic Sir Anthony Babington to kill the Protestant Elizabeth is mixed up in this play with an attempt on Elizabeths life; which coincides with this fictional meeting of the two queens. Mary is blamed since she had sought this meeting. Other non-historical elements of the play include a totally fictional character; Sir Edward Mortimer; the supposed nephew of the actual person Sir Amias Paulet; a gentle Puritan into whose keeping Mary has been given. Mortimer is the villain of the piece. A former Protestant; he has converted to Catholicism before the opening of the play and comes to England from Europe with a view toward freeing Mary. He places himself in league with Robert Dudley; Earl of Leicester; an actual personage who was a major figure in Elizabeths reign. Schiller depicts Leicester as switching his romantic attachment from Elizabeth to Mary (once suggested as a wife for him) after Elizabeth agrees to marry a French prince. Wishing not to spoil the reading of the play; I will not say how everything turns out in the end; but certainly Schiller has shown that Elizabeth was no match for Mortimer and Leicester--or other powerful men who spoke for or against Queen Mary. This; I think; is the most interesting aspect of this play.A word on the Kindle edition: Schiller wrote in blank verse; as did Shakespeare; and the translator has certainly worked to give a Shakespearean flavor to the work; employing iambic pentameter and Elizabethan language. Normally the text would be laid out as poetic lines with a capital letter beginning each new line in the blank verse; regardless of whether preceded by a period or not. The Kindle edition is; in fact; the same edition as displayed in the "Look Inside" feature. It is just that the formatting has been lost; giving the Kindle edition the appearance of random capitalization in prose lines.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. I ended up liking Elizabeth better :-)By Customerwell crafted version of a fictional meeting between the two queens.