Showing results by narrator "Marty Krz" in All Categories

Spring Awakening (German: Frühlings Erwachen) was the first major play by Frank Wedekind. It was written in the early 1890s but, due to opposition from censorship authorities, was not presented on stage until 1906. The play explores two contentious themes: the development of adolescent sexuality and the repressive nature of the German education system.

Ojo and Unc Nunkie live in the land of Oz in Munchkin Country. Their neighbor, Dr. Pipt, has been devotedly working on the Powder of Life for many years. This magical powder will turn inanimate objects into living things. While demonstrating its power on a stuffed doll made of patchwork, Dr. Pipt accidentally turns his wife and Unc Nunkie to stone. It is up to Ojo to collect the necessary ingredients to destroy the spell and turn them back.

In Oedipus at Colonus, the banished king, after years of wandering, accompanied by his faithful daughter Antigone, finds himself in Athens. Receiving a warm if guarded welcome from Theseus, King of Athens, he prepares to settle himself to spend his last days in peace. However, unwelcome visitors from his tortured past continue to haunt him until the very end.

This coming-of-age novel explores themes including religious skepticism, socialism, ennui, English society, sexual relationships, and metaphysics, as George searches for an ideal to which he can devote his life. Like all Wells’s novels, Tono-Bungay abounds with social critique.

Upon waking up in the Emerald City, Dorothy discovers that Princess Ozma is missing. In Quadling Country, Glinda finds that her magical Great Book of Records is also missing. She sends a message to the Wizard for help, but the Wizard cannot find his magic tools either. A search party is formed to track down the dear princess and all the missing magic. Over in Winkie Country, Cayke the Cookie Cook is missing her diamond studded golden dishpan and enlists the Yips advisor, Frogman, to assist her in locating it. Where has all the magic gone and what will become of Princess Ozma?

Together with The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of Shakespeare’s most magical plays. One night, two parties creep from Athens into the surrounding forest. One includes sweethearts Lysander and Hermia, fleeing from Athenian law and the disapproval of Hermia’s father to get married. In pursuit is Demetrius, the suitor of Hermia favored by her father, and the doleful Helena, formerly affianced to Demetrius.

Anna Katharine Green (1846 - 1935) was one of the first crime novelists and paved the way for later female writers of detective novels, like Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Ngaio Marsh. Among her prolific output are 12 novels featuring her main character, detective Ebenezer Gryce of the New York Metropolitan Police Force.

R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) is a science-fiction drama that was first presented in Czech in 1921. It introduced the term "robot", which is derived from a Czech word meaning "worker," to international vocabulary. The action opens in a factory that has successfully produced thousands of robots, who are essentially mindless drones. An idealistic humanitarian activist launches a plan to imbue some of the robots with human traits. The robots which have been humanized then assume leadership over the other robots and seek to organize them in a revolution to take over the world.

This classic farce was first performed in 1892. Since the record-breaking initial run in London, it has been revived many times around the world in a variety of languages, and has also been adapted for a number of presentations on film. The play incorporates many of the features which have become standard in romantic comedies: a cross dressing central character, identity confusion, young lovers kept apart by parental influence and older lovers unexpectedly reunited.

Moby Dick, which has been considered the great American novel, was first published in 1851. For material, Melville drew on his experience on whaling ships between 1841 and 1844, the sinking of the whaling vessel Essex in 1820, and extensive perusal of literature on whaling and many other subjects.

Dorothy and Uncle Henry go to California to visit family at Hugson's Ranch where Dorothy is introduced to her second cousin, Zeb. While Dorothy, Zeb, and Dorothy's cat, Eureka, are enjoying a horse-drawn buggy ride one afternoon, an earthquake hits, creating an enormous crack in the ground beneath their buggy. They all go tumbling into the crevice, down to the Land of the Mangaboos.

Young Cedric lives with his widowed mother in New York. His late father was a British earl who had been disowned by his father for marrying an American. As all of the earl of Dorincourt's sons have now died, he begrudgingly looks to Cedric as his sole heir. While the earl soon comes to love the endearing little Cedric, conflict arises when a strange woman appears on the scene and insists that her son is the true heir.

Antonio, a wealthy and popular merchant, is in financial difficulty. He approaches a Jewish money lender, Shylock, who agrees to provide 3000 ducats, with a very curious bond – a pound of the merchant’s flesh, to be levied if Antonio fails to make a timely repayment. Feeling confident that his argosies will arrive in time to cover the debt, Antonio agrees to this bizarre transaction.

After the death of their father, Oedipus, Antigone and Ismene return to Thebes. The ruler is their unyielding uncle by marriage, Creon, who assumed command after the death of the sons of Oedipus, Eteocles, and Polynices in a fratricidal struggle to take control of the city. Creon has the body of one brother buried with full civic honors but forbids the burial of the body of the other, whom he regards as a traitor. Antigone's challenge to Creon's decree, which she considers unjust, results in the extinction of the family line of Oedipus.

“He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad … “So begins this historical tale of romantic adventure. Andre-Louis Moreau is an orphan and cousin of the beloved Aline. He is raised by his godfather, the Lord of Gavrillac, and matures into an educated lawyer—while Aline sets her mind on marrying the rich but dishonorable Marquis de la Tour d’Azyr. But when Moreau’s closest friend is killed by the Marquis in a duel, Moreau vows vengeance. After publicly denouncing the aristocracy and stirring up the crowds, Moreau is forced to go into hiding.

Carlo Collodi's whimsical recasting of the myth of Pygmalion and Galatea was first published in 1883 and has since become an established classic of children's literature. Geppetto, a poor wood carver, receives a piece of wood from which he carves a marionette. Much to his surprise, the puppet springs to life and embarks on a wild series of adventures.

Hedda and George Tesman have just returned from their six-month honeymoon tour of the Tyrol. George, a studious and somewhat dull academic has spent most of the time continuing his research. Hedda, the daughter of the celebrated, aristocratic General Gabler, recently deceased, has been accustomed to the finer things in life. She is already bored in her marriage and diverts herself with her father's pistols and the attentions of family friend, Judge Brack.

Poe in Prose is a collection of short stories from one of the original kings of horror, Edgar Allan Poe. One of America's first practitioners of the short story and considered to be the inventor of the detective fiction genre, Poe is the first well-known American writer to earn a living through writing alone.

In the introduction to this selection of tales of the macabre, anthologist Arthur Reeve writes: "What is the fascination we feel for the mystery of the ghost story? Man is incurably fascinated by the mysterious. If all the ghost stories of the ages were blotted out, man would invent new ones. For, do we not all stand in awe of that which we cannot explain, of that which, if it is not in our own experience, is certainly recorded in the experience of others, of that of which we know and can know nothing?"

The collection contains eight of Shakespeare’s best loved comedies. Each exhibits the vigour, humour, and optimism of the young master before he turned to the gloom and bitterness of the great tragedies.