Neilson Plays: 2

Download or read book Neilson Plays: 2 written by Anthony Neilson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2014-10-10 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the 1990s playwright Anthony Neilson garnered a reputation for hard-hitting, morally disturbing plays that saw him labelled as one of the 'In Yer Face' dramatists who emerged from that decade. This second volume of plays showcases the comic, surreal and gloriously off-kilter side of his more recent work. Edward Gant's Amazing Feats of Loneliness! (Theatre Royal, Plymouth, 2002) mixes Victorian melodrama with a catalogue of grotesque comic tales; The Lying Kind (Royal Court, 2002), a black farce set at Christmas involving two hapless policeman who must break news of tragedy to an elderly couple, 'often reduced much of the audience to tears of laughter' (Financial Times). Produced originally for the 2004 Edinburgh International Festival, The Wonderful World of Dissocia wowed critics and audiences alike. A hugely original play inspired by Alice in Wonderland, it is both magical and moving and confirmed Neilson as one of the major voices in contemporary British Theatre. Realism premiered at the Edinburgh International Festival in 2006. It follows the life of one man during an ordinary day but veers off to become a deliriously surreal trip inside his wayward imagination. It was described by the Guardian as a 'bold and utterly distinctive all-singing, all-dancing show, like nothing else you'll ever see'.