BOOKS FEATURING AVANT-GARDE PLAYS
Here is an extensive list of books containing
avant-garde plays and information on the history of avant-garde theatre.
Most can be found on Amazon.com and other Internet book sites, while a
few out of print gems will require a more determined search.
The
list is divided into three catagories: Collections
of Avant-garde Theatre Pieces; Selected Books About
Avant-garde Theatre; and Books and
Plays by Individual Playwrights.
Collections
Modern French
Theatre
E.P. Dutton & CO. 1966
Note: This book
may currently be out of print, but is worth searching for. It contains
plays by Alfred Jarry, Guillaume Apollinaire, Tristan Tzara, Andre Breton
& Philippe Soupault, Louis Aragon, Rene Daumal, Roger Gilbert-Lecomte,
Antonin Artaud, Roger Vitrac, Robert Desnos and Eugene Ionesco, among
others.
Dada Performance
PAJ Publications 1987
Note: Features a scene by scene description
of Raymond Roussel's 1912 Paris production of Impressions of
Africa, as well as works for the theatre by Hugo Ball, Tristan Tzara,
Raoul Hausmann, Kurt Schwitters, Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, Andre Breton
& Philippe Soupault, Roger Vitrac and Francis Picabia, among
others.
An Anthology of German Expressionist
Drama
Anchor Books 1963
Note: This collection
features plays by Oskar Kokoschka, Georg Kaiser, Yvan Goll and Bertolt
Brecht, among others.
Nine Plays of the Modern
Theater
Grove Press 1981
Note: Includes plays by
Bertolt Brecht, Jean Genet, Samuel Beckett and Eugene Ionesco, among
others.
Theater of the Avant-Garde,
1890-1950: A Critical Anthology
Yale University Press
2001
Note: Includes plays by Antonin Artaud, Alfred Jarry, Roger Virac
and Aleksandr Vvedensky, among others.
Books About Avant-Garde Theatre
Dada and Surrealist
Performance by Annabelle Melzer
PAJ Publishing
1994
Russian and Soviet
Theater 1905-1932 by Konstantin Rudnitsky
Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
1988
Meyerhold on
Theatre by Vsevolod Meyerhold
Methuen 1978
Meyerhold: A Revolution
in Theatre by Edward Braun
University of Iowa Press
1998
The Theatre of Erwin
Piscator by John Willet
Holmes & Meier 1979
Twentieth Century Polish
Theatre edited by Bohdan Drozdowski
Riverrun Press 1979
Note:
Contains critical writings, manifestos and plays by, among others,
Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz
and Tadeusz Kantor.
The Theatre of the
Absurd by Martin Esslin
Reissued by Vintage Press
2004
Butoh: Dance of the Dark
Soul edited by Mark Holborn
and Ethan Hoffman
Aperture
1987
Books and Plays by Individual Playwrights
The playwrights are presented in the following order: Georg Buchner, Alfred Jarry, Oskar Panizza, Raymond Roussel, Oskar Kokoschka, Georg Kaiser, Ernst Toller, Yvan Goll, Bertolt Brecht, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Guillaume Apollinaire, Antonin Artaud, Roger Vitrac, Robert Desnos, Georges Neveux, Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz, Federico Garcia Lorca, Michel de Ghelderode, Luigi Pirandello, Jean Paul-Sartre, Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, Tadeusz Kantor, Heiner Muller and Richard Foreman .
Georg
Buchner
Woyzeck (translated by Nicholas Rudall) Ivan R. Dee
Publishers 2002
Woyzeck (translated by Daniel J. Farrelly)
Carysfort Press 2004
Note: There are also numerous collections of
Buchner's complete plays, which feature Woyzeck in a variety of different translations. Among the publishers
currently offering such anthologies are Penguin, Oxford University Press,
Hill and Wang and Manchester University Press.
Ubu Roi Dover Publications 2003
The
Ubu Plays (featuring Ubu Roi, Ubu Cuckolded, Ubu
Enchained )
Grove Weidenfield 1968
Note: Atlas Press offers several collections of Jarry's writing, including The Antliaclasts and Related Texts, which features a student play from 1886, and Caesar Antichrist, Jarry's second book/play published in 1895, which contains an early version of Ubu in one of its acts.
The Council of Love (trans. by Oreste F. Pucciani)
Viking Press 1973
The Council of Love
(translated by Malcolm Green) Atlas Press 1992
Oskar Panizza - His
Life and Works by Peter D.G. Brown
Published
by Peter Lang 1983
Selections From Certain of His
Books (features the plays The Dust of Suns and The Star
on the Forehead)
Atlas Press 1991
Dada Performance (contains a scene by scene
description of Roussel's 1912 Paris production of Impressions of
Africa
) PAJ 1987
Life, Death
& Works
(features various articles on Roussel, as well
as reviews of some of his plays) Atlas Press 1987
Raymond
Roussel by Franois Caradec Atlas Press
2001
Oskar
Kokoschka
Plays and Poems (includes Murderer, Hope
of Women, Sphinx and Strawman, Job, The Burning Bush, Orpheus and Eurydice
and Comenius) Ariadne Press 2001
An Anthology of German Expressionist
Drama
(contains
Kokoschka's Murderer, Hope of Women ) Anchor Books 1963
Gas 1 Frederick Ungar Publishing Co. 1968
Gas 2
Frederick Ungar Publishing Co. 1972
Plays Volume One
(contains From Morning To Midnight, The Coral,
The Burghers of Calais,
Gas 1 and Gas 2)
Riverrun Press 1971
An Anthology of German Expressionist Drama
(contains Kaiser's Alkibiades Saved ) Anchor Books
1963
Seven Plays by Ernst Toller
(contains The Machine Wreckers, Draw the Fires, Transfiguration,
Masses and Man, Hinkemann, The Blind Goddess, and Hoppla! Such is
Life!
) Liveright Publishing 1936
I Was A
German
Paragon House 1991
The Plays of
Ernst Toller: A Revaluation by Cecil
Davies
Routledge 1996
An Anthology of German Expressionist Drama (contains Goll's play The Immortal One, as well as Two Superdramas, a theoretical work) Anchor Books 1963
Note: Brecht's works in English were published by Methuen Publishing until 2006. These editions, edited by Ralph Manheim and John Willett, are now sold by A&C Black Publishers in London. In addition to Brecht's plays, the Manheim & Willet series also includes collections of poetry, prose and theoretical writing. As of the 1990s, Arcade Publishing in the United States has issued individual volumes of most of the A&C Black series.
Collected Plays
Published by A&C Black
Vol.
1 (Baal, Drums in the Night, In the
Jungle of Cities, The Life of Edward II of England, and five one-act
plays)
Vol. 2 (Man Equals Man, The Elephant Calf,
The Threepenny Opera, The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny and The
Seven Deadly Sins)
Vol. 3 (St. Joan of the
Stockyards, Lindbergh's Flight, The Baden-Baden Lesson on Consent, He Said
Yes / He Said No, The Decision, The Exception and the Rule, The Horatians
and the Curiations and The Mother)
Vol. 4 (Round
Heads and Pointed Heads, Fear and Misery of the Third Reich, Senora
Carrar's Rifles, Dansen, How Much is Your Iron? and The Trial of
Lucullus)
Vol. 5 (Galileo and Mother Courage and
Her Children)
Vol. 6 (The Good Person of Szechwan,
Arturo Ui and Mr Puntila and His Man Matti)
Vol. 7
(The Visions of Simone Machard, Schweyk in the Second World War, The
Caucasian Chalk Circle and The Duchess of Malfi)
Vol.
8 (Antigone, The Days of the Commune and Turandot)
Note: A number of Brecht's plays, translated and edited by Eric Bentley, have been published by Grove Press since the early 1960s. While Bentley was an important advocate of Brecht's work in the English-speaking world, the Manheim & Willet editions are preferable.
Grove Press Editions edited by Eric
Bentley
Three Plays: Baal, A Man's a Man, The Elephant Calf
Edward
II
The Mother
The Threepenny Opera
Mother Courage and Her
Children
Galileo Translated by Charles
Laughton.
The Jewish Wife & Other Short Plays (contains
The Jewish Wife, In Search of Justice, The Informer, The Measures
Taken, The Exception and the Rule and The Salzburg Dance of
Death )
Jungle of the Cities and Other Plays (also
includes Drums in the Night and Roundheads and Peakheads
)
Other Books by Brecht Relating to
Theatre
The Messingkauf
Dialogues Methuen 2002
Brecht on Theatre Hill and Wang
1964
Poems & Songs From the Plays Methuen 1990
Further Notes:
There have been numerous biographies written about Brecht. Recommended are Brecht by Ronald Hayman and Bertolt Brecht - His Life, His Art, His Times by Frederic Ewen. The biographical works written by John Fuegi should be approached with caution, as the author takes a rather vehement anti-Brecht stance, appearing to have some sort of an ax to grind.
While difficult to find, the THEATERARBEIT books, published in Germany, are well worth the search. They document many of Brecht's productions at the Berliner Ensemble and feature numerous photographs.
One Final Note: In addition to being an important playwright, Brecht was an excellent poet. Highly recommended is the anthology Poems 1913-1956 published by Methuen in 1979
Bugs! Three Plays by Vladimir Mayakovsky Green Integer
2007
Mayakovsky: Plays
Northwestern University Press 1995
The Bedbug and Selected Poetry Indiana University Press 1975
Modern French Theatre (includes Appolinaire's play The Breasts of Tiresias) E.P. Dutton & Co. 1966
The Theatre and Its Double Grove Press 1994
Artaud on Theatre
Methuen Drama 2001
The Cenci
Grove Press 1970
Modern
French Theatre (includes Artaud's play
Jet of Blood )
E.P. Dutton
1966
Collected Works
Calder Publications 1974
Volume
1
: Prose, Poetry & Letters
Volume 2
: The Alfred Jarry Theatre
Volume 3
: Scenarios on the Cinema, Interviews & Letters
Volume 4:
The Theatre and Its Double, The Cenci & Theatre Doc-
uments
Modern French Theatre (includes Vitrac's play The Mysteries of Love) E.P. Dutton 1966
Modern French Theatre
(includes Desnos' play La Place de l'etoile)
E.P. Dutton 1966
Note: There are currently no translations of Neveux's play Juliette or The Key to Dreams in book form. However, there is a CD recording of Martinu's opera of the same name, which contains the libretto, closely based on Neveux's play, in Czech, French, German and English. The recording was issued by Supraphon.
Three Plays (including The Madman and the
Nun, The Crazy Locomotive and The Water Hen ) Applause
1968
The Mother and Other Unsavory Plays (also includes
They and The Shoemakers) Applause 1968
Tropical
Madness (contains The Pragmatists, Mr. Price or Tropical Madness,
Gyubal Wahazar or Along the Cliffs of the Absurd and Metaphysics of a Two-
Headed Calf ) The Winter Repertory 1972
The Witkiewicz Reader
(includes prose and the plays Cockroaches and The New
Deliverance ) Northwestern University Press 1992
Seven
Plays (includes The Pragmatists, Tumor Brainiowicz, Gyubal
Wahazar, The Anonymous Work, The Cuttlefish, Dainty Shapes and Hairy Apes,
and The Beelzebub Sonata ) Martin E. Segal Theatre Center
Publications 2004
Once Five Years Pass and other
dramatic works
Station
Hill Press 1986
The
Public and Play Without a Title
New Directions 1983
The Rural Trilogy (Blood Wedding, Yerma &
Bernardo Alba)
Bantam Books
1987
Plays (3 Volumes)
Methuen 1990
The Unknown Federico Garcia Lorca Atlas Press
1996
Note: Of course, Lorca's poetry is also highly recommended, especially the collections Gypsy Ballads and Poet in New York .
Seven Plays (includes
Chronicles of Hell & The Woman at the Tomb,
among others)
Hill and Wang 1960
Seven Plays Volume 2 (includes Red
Magic, A Night of Pity and
The Death of Doctor Faust, among others) Hill and Wang
1964
Six Characters in Search of an
Author and Other Plays
Penguin 1996
Three
Major Plays (includes Six Characters in Search of an Author,
Right You Are - If You Think So and Henry IV )
Smith & Kraus 2001
Pirandello's Henry IV
Grove Press 2005
Naked Masks: Five Plays
E.P. Dutton 1952
No Exit and Three Other
Plays Vintage 1989
Jean-Paul Sartre's
Adaptation of Euripides' The Trojan Women Vintage 1972
Waiting for Godot Grove Press 1958
Endgame
Grove Press 1958
Happy Days
Faber & Faber 1998
Krapp's Last Tape and Other Dramatic Pieces
Grove Press 1958
Cascando and Other Short
Dramatic Pieces
Grove Press 1963
Ends and
Odds: Nine Dramatic Pieces
Grove Press 1974
Eleutheria
Foxrock 1995
The Dramatic Works of Samuel Beckett: Volume III
of The Grove Centenary Editions
Grove Press 2006
Note: Of course, there are also numerous publications available featuring Beckett's prose, poetry and criticism.
Four Plays (featuring
The Bald Soprano, The Lesson, Jack or the Submission and The
Chairs
) Grove Press 1958
The Killer and
Other Plays
Grove Press 1960
Rhinoceros
Grove Press 1960
Exit the King and Other Plays
Grove Press 1994
Amedee and Other Plays
Grove Press 1994
Hunger and Thirst and Other Plays
Grove Press 1960
Macbett Grove Press 1960
Wielopole Wielopole Marion Boyars 1990
A Journey Through Other Spaces:
Essays and Manifestos
University of California
1993
The Theatre of Death
Galeria Foksal PSP Books 1975
Twentieth Century Polish Theatre
(contains a manifesto by Kantor, as well as notes concerning The Dead
Class ) Riverrun Press
1979
Hamletmachine and Other Texts
for the Stage PAJ Publications
1984
Germania
Semiotext 1990
Heiner Muller Reader: Plays, Poetry, Prose
PAJ Publications 2007
The Theater of Heiner
Muller
by Jonathan Kalb Limelight 2004
Muller in America: US Productions of Works by
Heiner Muller
Castillo Cultural Center
2003
Love & Science: Selected
Music-Theatre Texts
Theatre
Communications Group 1991
Unbalancing Acts: Foundations for a Theater
Theatre Communications Group
1993
Bad Boy
Nietzsche! And Other Plays
Theatre Communications Group 2007
Paradise Hotel and Other Works
Overlook 2001
My Head Was a Sledgehammer: Six Plays
Overlook 1995
Richard Foreman: Plays and Manifestos New
York University Press 1976
CHECK
OUT
OUR LATEST SURREALIST RECOMMENDATION!
SANCTUS
FUMIGACI
a collection of
Surrealist Plays
Click on the below image to learn
more!
"Bash is one of the few contemporary
playwrights who captures the spirit of surrealism. In fact, surrealist
figures from the past, such as Luis Bunuel, Salvador Dali and Paul Eluard,
appear as characters in a couple of his plays. Dream-like, funny, and
sometimes disturbing, SANCTUS FUMIGACI (which, in English, loosely
translates to "Holy Smoke") is recommended for fans of avant garde
literature and experimental theater."