David Edgar

How Plays Work

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Distinguished playwright David Edgar examines the mechanisms and techniques which dramatists throughout the ages have employed to structure their plays and to express their meaning.
Written for playwrights and playgoers alike, Edgar's analysis starts with the building blocks of whole plays — plot, character creation, genre and structure — and moves on to scenes and devices. He shows how plays share a common architecture without which the uniqueness of their authors' vision would be invisible.
What does King Lear have in common with Cinderella? What does Jaws owe to Ibsen? From Aeschylus to Alan Ayckbourn, from Chekhov to Caryl Churchill, are there common principles by which all plays work?
How Plays Work is a masterclass for playwrights and playmakers and a fascinating guide to the anatomy of drama.
'Lucid, deeply intelligent… combines theoretical acumen with the assured know-how of a working dramatist' Terry Eagleton, Times Literary Supplement
'Fascinating… Read It. You will learn a lot.' The Stage
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259 printed pages
Original publication
2012
Publication year
2012
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Quotes

  • roey maliach-reshefhas quoted5 years ago
    the dramatic character acts, while the novelist’s character
  • roey maliach-reshefhas quoted5 years ago
    Tragedies are not performed, therefore, in order to represent character, though character is involved for the sake of the action… The plot, then, is the first essential of tragedy, its lifeblood, so to speak, and character takes the second place
  • roey maliach-reshefhas quoted5 years ago
    As Brook puts it, ‘Life in the theatre is more readable and intense because it is more concentrated.’8 Elsewhere, he explains Shakespeare’s art primarily in terms of its concentration: ‘Shakespeare seems better in performance than anyone else because he gives us more, moment for moment, for our money.’9

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