Plays

Gaius Cassius Longinus (before 85 BC - October 42 BC) was a Roman senator, a leading instigator of the plot to kill Julius Caesar,[1] and the brother in-law of Marcus Junius Brutus

Barbantio's reaction to Othello and Desdemona's marriage was he thought that Othello used magic on Desdemona. He couldn't believe his daughter, a Venetian woman would love a dark Moor without Othello using magic.

John Osbourne

A Doll's House was published in Norway in 1879. The first stage production was in Stockholm, in 1880. The play caused an immediate sensation, sparked debate and controversy, and brought Ibsen international fame. It was highly provoking: People tended to respond strongly to it, whether in praise or censure. All around the world, Nora's final door-slam made conservatives rage and liberals cheer, gave anti-feminists reason to fear and feminists reason to hope. The play has less shock-value today, but in the late-nineteenth century, performing it was often, as one critic puts it, "a revolutionary action, a daring defiance of the cultural norms of the time."

What were these cultural norms? Without simplifying too much, we could say that they were the ideals and values represented by Torvald Helmer and his doll-wife Nora, before her great change. These were the ideals that defined what is commonly termed "bourgeois respectability": financial success, upward social mobility, freedom from financial debt and moral guilt (or at least the appearance thereof), and a stable, secure family organized along traditional patriarchal lines. The patriarchal ideal was supported and reinforced by a social structure wherein women had little overt political or economic power, wherein they were economically, socially, and psychologically dependent on men and especially on the institutions of marriage and motherhood. The ideal of bourgeois respectability prevailed in the nineteenth century, but it never went unchallenged, and by the time Ibsen wrote his own challenge to it, at the end of the century, a new era of crisis and uncertainty regarding all things conventional had already begun. The position of women was an especially volatile issue because the patriarchal ideology underlay the entire social, political, and economic structure. If women were to have autonomy, then the whole structure of society would have to be reimagined�the world would have to be remade. It was an apocalyptic idea that thrilled many intellectuals but terrified the ruling and middle classes, so that each move in the direction of autonomy� women's suffrage, revised marriage laws, advances in women's education� felt like the end of the world. The last decades of the nineteenth century had already begun to feel like the end of the world, anyway. The Western world was about to enter a period of unprecedented change-revolutions social, political, economic, cultural, and scientific. No one knew exactly what was coming, but a great many looked toward it with a mixture of hope and dread. When Nora slams the door of her doll's-house, shutting herself out of the only world she has known and stepping into a future that is unknown and therefore both promising and threatening, the sound resonates with the apocalyptic tremors of Ibsen's time. A Doll's House was published in Norway in 1879. The first stage production was in Stockholm, in 1880. The play caused an immediate sensation, sparked debate and controversy, and brought Ibsen international fame. It was highly provoking: People tended to respond strongly to it, whether in praise or censure. All around the world, Nora's final door-slam made conservatives rage and liberals cheer, gave anti-feminists reason to fear and feminists reason to hope. The play has less shock-value today, but in the late-nineteenth century, performing it was often, as one critic puts it, "a revolutionary action, a daring defiance of the cultural norms of the time."

What were these cultural norms? Without simplifying too much, we could say that they were the ideals and values represented by Torvald Helmer and his doll-wife Nora, before her great change. These were the ideals that defined what is commonly termed "bourgeois respectability": financial success, upward social mobility, freedom from financial debt and moral guilt (or at least the appearance thereof), and a stable, secure family organized along traditional patriarchal lines. The patriarchal ideal was supported and reinforced by a social structure wherein women had little overt political or economic power, wherein they were economically, socially, and psychologically dependent on men and especially on the institutions of marriage and motherhood. The ideal of bourgeois respectability prevailed in the nineteenth century, but it never went unchallenged, and by the time Ibsen wrote his own challenge to it, at the end of the century, a new era of crisis and uncertainty regarding all things conventional had already begun. The position of women was an especially volatile issue because the patriarchal ideology underlay the entire social, political, and economic structure. If women were to have autonomy, then the whole structure of society would have to be reimagined�the world would have to be remade. It was an apocalyptic idea that thrilled many intellectuals but terrified the ruling and middle classes, so that each move in the direction of autonomy� women's suffrage, revised marriage laws, advances in women's education� felt like the end of the world. The last decades of the nineteenth century had already begun to feel like the end of the world, anyway. The Western world was about to enter a period of unprecedented change-revolutions social, political, economic, cultural, and scientific. No one knew exactly what was coming, but a great many looked toward it with a mixture of hope and dread. When Nora slams the door of her doll's-house, shutting herself out of the only world she has known and stepping into a future that is unknown and therefore both promising and threatening, the sound resonates with the apocalyptic tremors of Ibsen's time.

You need to read the stage directions as well as the lines because it helps you visualize the play. While reading a play, you must visualize what is happening on the stage, so it helps to know when certain characters enter the scene, and where, how they interact with props and so on. Although certain anal-retentive authors make their stage directions very complete, sometimes including matters which do not appear on stage (such as what is happening in the characters' minds), even in these extreme cases, the directions cannot tell you everything. You need to use your imagination. Indeed, the more stage complete the stage directions are, the more a good director will ignore them, as the author's ideas about what will work often do not apply to the cast or space the director has in mind or is obliged to use.

The mad man on the roof In the past I heard that a mad man can act so badly that thousand of cleavers can not replace his stupidity. Now the people say USA wanted to attack Afghanistan, but they did not have any excuse to do this action and fight with Taliban or Alghaede. Some people including Mr. Dr. Ahmadi Nejad say that USA itself prepares the plan of this attack. How a super power cannot be aware from such an attack? He says they or part of the government prepared this plan, so they can have excuse to attach Afghanistan or Iraq. Now they are saying yearly 30 billions dollars is spent for the Afghanistan. So who has the benefit in this war? The people of Afghanistan or the people or Iraq or USA have benefit of this war.

The people of USA pay high tax to finance the war and they also will lose a lot of their young or middle aged people. The people in Iraq orAfghanistan have disasters and lack of materials, no water and instead bombs and insecurity. Every day some people are killed by suicide bombers. And as you know some people made money and continue to make more money. The super man people send a mad man on the roof and made a lot of advertisement for him and so the people started to be against him and for him and they started the quarrel between themselves and were busy with those activities. In the time that the mad man made a lot of noise and advertisement on the roof where everybody could see him easily, the thieves and charlatans made a lot of money from this confusion. The families are destroyed the condition is worst than before. The girls had no husbands and the boys had no money to support the girls and marry them. The girls went to other countries to find husband or work and the parents were upset and angry about the condition. The sent a mad man on the roof to have an excuse to fight again.

All the way which were guided to the roof were blocked by the mad man or his friends. He was in the top of the roof and everybody could see him and he started to advertise for hate and war and fighting. He lied very easily for his purpose, because he was told lying is OK if it guides you to the target. Nobody could go to the roof and bring mad man down. He and his friend blocked all the ways to the roof and he was there safe and sound to do his mission. He was free there to say what ever he wanted and nobody had access to him. First he said good words that he love people and will help the people if he gets money and power. He wanted to gather people around himself first. All of you get nice house, nice wife and nice husbands if you support me, I will promise to give all of you good jobs, enough incomes and nice environment. We will build the paradise on the earth. We do not need hurries from paradise, we will create them here. Everybody can go to university, everybody can have enough money, I will promise you to give a lot of wealth to all of you. God will give me money and I will give them to you.

Some people started to say, he is saying the same words that Satan told Jesus? He said to Jesus the same things all will give you the whole world and you will be the king of kings on the earth. The history is repeating itself always and the people make the same mistake over and over. They go after something better and they got something much worst. He said always good words and the people were so happy to have such a nice man on the top of the roof. You will all get what ever you want, I will divide the wealth between all of you very just and everybody get a good portion. The rich must pay more tax and the poor should have a good life for this world and for the other world. I will help you to get both worlds and gain both of them. But as soon as he saw he had a lot of people around him, he started to train people to hate and to kill. If you kill those people who are a little bit different than you; you will go to paradise and will get nice life. Now the people have no access to him any more, he was on the top of the roof and they were down. Slowly the people started to hate him. They through stones and eggs or mud to him or, they even through Sheet On him.

But now he was up and they were down. And he had also some supporters between people. He with the support of some of his followers, he continue his way and he did not care if many people will be destroyed or not. He let his followers kill the other people and he commanded from the roof, kill them, if they do not listen to you. You are important; they are nothing just like mosquitoes. He was now after so many lie and so many promises up and the people who believed him were down. Now he had the power to control them and he got a lot of followers. He let down money or gold to the people.He got before from his unseen masters to his flowers and they could have a good life and did not care about other people. He could manage to get his position and now he does not care about people any more, because he had enough flowers and he got enough money from his supporters to act like that. No he guided the people in the way he wanted or in the way that unseen people dictated him. He could divide the people in different group and each group was against other group. And they did not know the real reason of this hate and disunity. The mad man did his job which has been dictated to him very well. And with huge advertisement from the roof of the world, he could reach with his voice all people he needed. Hate , war disunity and fighting was already started.

The people have fear to be against the Satan as his followers spread this advertisement. Now with fear he continues his mission. And the people were in a very bad situation and they regret why the flow the mad man. But now it was too late, he had the people he wanted and they supported him enough. He did not need any one any more. Everyday a lot of passengers came there to see the mad man on the roof. So a lot of businesses were created because of the action of mad man. The people to go there and to see Satan should buy the ticket of air plans or trains or they should drive there. The local people got very wealthy because of mad man. They could rent their rooms or houses very expensive to the passengers, or to the people who decided to stay there. The district of the mad man on the roof gets very popular and very expensive. And the people of that area get also rich, because of the mad man. The people are amazing and they think the mad man will rescue them from the poverty and can help them to get jobs. They give money to other people to get a jobs or they sent the money to the mad man, in the hope to get job and come out from poverty. The promise of the mad man was like a medicine for them, they love to hear his lies. With this lies they were happy and they thought they will be rescued. The mad man influence people from the roof of the world to fight for their believes, so the people who sell the weapons were supporting the mad man and give some present of their benefits to him.

All the people who had benefits from the mad man help him to destroy and confuse the people , the majority more and more. They gave him billion of billions gold coins. So he could spend and buy what ever he wanted. He just think about himself and did not care about the majority. Now the opium and drug business was also very good there. Some people were disappointed and use drug or drink alcohol to forget the life. And smart people were killed or they put in prisons by the mad man supporters. Some people still believed him and some knew he is a agent of huge business people who want to sell their weapons or drugs and will also prove the power of their weapons. Many people know he is a mad man, but the people who had a lot of benefits wanted to fight with other people, they prefer to keep the mad man on the power, so they can make more money as before. Some people got rich because of his madness, so they wanted him. The mad man on the roof brought killing and hate and difficult life for the majority of people as gifts.

But some of his flowers had everything that they could not believe. He made paradise on the earth just for some people. But the majorities of people have been cheated and were losers so they were waiting for a Messiah to come and rescue them and they pray for it and some were also fighting against the people of the mad man on the roof.

Brutus believes that Antony is the same kind of person he is; a man who can be trusted to keep his word and act honourably. While Antony is suggesting that Brutus is dishonourable by calling him honourable, he himself is acting dishonourably by breaking the spirit of his promise to Brutus. Irony upon irony!

In the Taming of the Shrew, Mr. Minola has two daughters: Bianca who everyone wants to marry because she seems so nice and well-behaved, and Katherine, who is bad-tempered and wilful, and who nobody wants to come within a mile of. Mr. Minola says that nobody can marry Bianca until Katharine is married. One of the guys interested in Bianca, Hortensio, gets his pal Petruchio to apply for the job of Kate's husband. Petruchio says he doesn't care about her disposition, he is only interested in the money.

Meanwhile Lucentio, another guy interested in Bianca, disguises himself as a tutor in order to get near her while his servant pretends to be him in order to square the deal with Minola. Hortensio also disguises himself as a tutor to Bianca.

Petruchio studiously ignores Kate's bad temper, and since he seems like a good match, Minola allows him to court Kate. Things get pretty rough but Petruchio keeps his cool, says he finds her delightful and that they would like to get married next week, thank you.

The wedding is a wild affair. Petruchio comes in an insane costume, swears at the priest, and does not even let Katherine stay for the reception. She goes fighting all the way. They get back to Petruchio's place and he won't let her eat because he says the food is too badly cooked, won't let her sleep because he says the bed is bad, and won't let her have any new clothes because they don't look good. This he calls "killing a wife with kindness" although of course he doesn't mean to kill her. By now Kate is so hungry and sleepy that she'll take anything. She learns that if she goes along with whatever Petruchio says, she is more likely to get what she wants, even if it means calling the sun the moon or an old man a young maiden. In other words, what she used to get with bullying she can now get with guile.

Lucentio has succeeded in his project to marry Bianca, and Petruchio and Katherine are of course invited to the wedding. At the wedding feast, Katherine proves that she is a more obedient wife than her sister and also Hortensio's new wife. She seals it with a speech in praise of wifely obedience. (But does she mean it?)

The surface idea of the ideal wife being totally obedient to her husband is one which causes many people grief these days. Some consider Petruchio's conduct to be abusive and appalling. Some productions which emphasize this can be very dark. On the other hand, the possibility that Kate learns how to pretend, so her last speech is tongue in cheek, adds a suggestion that Kate (or any other "obedient wives") is not really subservient at all, just good at pretending.

Brutus wants to march to Phillipi. In other words, he want to take to battle to them. Cassius wants to stay put and let the battle come to them.

Miranda stands behind her father when she feels threatened by Caliban.

Props, sets, costumes, lighting, and special effects- APEX

Macbeth heads home to prepare his household for a royal visit. But he first sends a letter ahead, to give his wife the news of the witches' predictions. He shows up not too long after Lady Macbeth finishes reading his message [Act 1 Scene 5].

shakespeare usually had plays of 5 acts each with 5 scenes

They were adherents of the religion of Ancient Rome, a complex mix of public worship of the Olympian gods (the Romanized versions of the Greek pantheon) and private worship of the Lares and Penates (household gods). There were also various cults, or private worship of particular deities apart from the regular pantheon, usually oriental like Mithras. Brutus was a Stoic, but this is more of a philosophy than a religion.

He speaks in prose ( what most texts are written in: books &essays etc.Poems are not written in prose)
He talked in prosebecause he wasn't as educated as others in the play and also Shakespeare wanted to show him as a lower class character.

The setting is important because it helps to emphasize many themes already present in the novel. For example, the fact that Victor is going beyond the limits of science by creating the creature is one part of the theme of going beyond limits and their negative effects. The setting goes beyond normal limits since it goes through the arctic, etc. Also, places like the mountains and the island emphasize the theme of isolation from society.

He is Othello's ensign and the villain. He is selfish, narcissistic, extremely intelligent, two-faced, and deceitful.

No. He is of the view that Hamlet will have a bride chosen for him, probably some woman of royal blood. He wouldn't be able to marry Ophelia even if he wanted to. (Ironically, Gertrude later reveals that she had intended that Hamlet should marry Ophelia, so Laertes was wrong.)

Blanche had married a young man who she later discovered was gay, she later confronts him with her discovery and he commits suicide.

Hester Prynne was not executed because the magistrates believed that shame would be a harsher punishment. Therefore Hester was forced to wear a scarlet A on her chest. Another reason she was not executed was that nobody knew the identity of her child's father. If Hester was executed, then there would be no one to take care of the child.

He gets blinded by Regan and The Earl of Cornwall and his property taken away and given to his bastard son Edmund. He then wanders about accompanied by his other son Edgar, who's in exile. When Edgar reveals his identity, Gloucester has a heart attack and dies.

In Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', Demetrius is in love with Hermia, but Hermia hates Demetrius, as he won't leave her alone, tries to steal her away from Lysander and tries to force her to marry him by saying that she is his 'certain right'. He also previously wooed her best friend Helena, promised to marry her, and then left her as soon as he saw Hermia, so part of her hatred is loyalty to her friend.

A "love triangle" is when three people are involved with each other, either directly or indirectly. For instance, a man dating two different women who might or might not know about each other.

ermmm ... well normally a lady , however it depends on the play and the genre for example a comic play e.g a panto , a lot of the time women are played by men.