What is marriage? Can a relationship dedicated to equality, friendship, and mutual education flower in an atmosphere of romance? What are the paths between loving another and knowing another? Stanley Cavell identified a genre of classic American films that engaged these questions in his study of comedies of remarriage, Pursuits of Happiness . With Contesting Tears , Cavell demonstrates that a contrasting genre, which he calls "the melodrama of the unknown woman," shares a surprising number and weave of concerns with those comedies. Cavell provides close readings of four melodramas he finds definitive of the genre: Letter from an Unknown Woman , Gaslight , Now Voyager , and Stella Dallas . The women in these melodramas, like the women in the comedies, demand equality, shared education, and transfiguration, exemplifying for Cavell a moral perfectionism he identifies as Emersonian. But unlike the comedies, which portray a quest for a shared existence of expressiveness and joy, the melodramas trace instead the woman's recognition that in this quest she is isolated. Part of the melodrama concerns the various ways the men in the films (and the audiences of the films) interpret and desire to force the woman's consequent inaccessibility. "Film is an interest of mine," Stanley Cavell has written, "or say a love, not separate from my interest in, or love of, philosophy." In Contesting Tears Cavell once again brilliantly unites his two loves, using detailed and perceptive musings on melodrama to reflect on philosophical problems of skepticism, psychoanalysis, and perfectionism. As he shows, the fascination and intelligence of such great stars as Ingrid Bergman, Bette Davis, and Barbara Stanwyck illuminate, as they are illuminated by, the topics and events of these beloved and enduring films.

Satirical comedy / 24 m. 14 f. (doubling possible.) / 5 ints. or unit set. Recently revived on Broadway to great acclaim this is the rollicking tale of three down and out troupers who decide to head for Hollywood and try their luck with the newly invented talkies. Due to a series of consistent blunders the most stupid of the three is carried to pinnacles of fame and fortune until he's literally made a god of the industry. It's a fast paced and wild romp and a marvelous spoof of tinsel land.

In a fashionable restaurant two gangsterish brothers formerly from the East End but now 'strategy consultants who enforce the peace' are celebrating a wedding anniversary with their wives who are sisters. At the next table a banker is dining with his wife formerly his secretary. Violent wildly funny this play displays a vivid zest for life. Diners and the staff at an elegant restaurant treat audiences to some unusually entertaining fare in this recent London hit by one of the major voices of modern theatre.

Tune in to the wild new series by the bestselling author of "Sunset Island". Welcome to "Trash", the hippest, raciest TV talk show ever. Ten thousand teens apply and six are picked as interns, and given an awesome apartment. Fantastic friends, hot romance, a summer to remember, so long as no one, especially "Trash", unearths intern Chelsea's secret.

"Century 21," a time machine in literary form, ignores the unity of time, space, and character. This tragicomical idyll of the future past mixes ancient and modern genres: Platonic dialogue and nineteenth-century romance, reportage and science fiction. At the book's core are two sisters, Ann Kar, a writer and survivor, and Carol, a suicidal artist. Considering herself a lunatic, Carol dreams about escaping from the earth to the moon (luna) and about the moon scholar, a lunar archeologist, who a thousand years after her death, while reconstructing terrestrial life, discovers the traces of her existence, falls in love with her, and begins to write about her - and his - erotic adventure. The result is a novel where Anna Karenina writes about Simone Weil, where Joseph Conrad meets Malcolm Lowry in Mexico, where Goethe presides over a literary institute made up of such members as Italo Svevo and Sextus Propertius, and where Djuna Barnes, dying from AIDS, visits Moses Maimonides in Japan. Ewa Kuryluk is fascinated by the repetition of the same situations and types, yet she's after her contemporaries who are starved for affection, lost in transit, ready to slip into somebody else's skin, and speaking in English, their second language, with a heavy accent. "Century 21" is a profoundly moving and original work.

From David Adjmi the virtuosic playwright dubbed one of the "best and most original theatre artists of a generation" by Vogue come a wholly original one-woman show. Elective Affinities takes the audience into the apartment of Alice a witty octogenarian offering a funny and savage portrait of cultured life promising to initiate a vital discourse about what it means to be civilized.

The latest instalment in the fascinating life of the one and only Katie Price. The last three years of Katie Price's life have been some of the most dramatic and startling yet. In this dazzling instalment of her life, Katie reveals the many ups and downs from the highly publicised divorce from Alex Reid, the romance and split from Leo Penna and a whirlwind marriage and surprise pregnancy with Kieran Hayler. And that''s just her love life. Katie has also dealt with increasingly bitter disputes with first husband Peter Andre and her former manager, as well as her public spat with comedian Frankie Boyle who made offensive comments about her disabled son Harvey. Despite her personal life being played out in the public arena, Katie remains true to her heart by always speaking her mind and living life to the full. "Lipstick, Love and Lawsuits" gives her side of the story, once again expressing her humour, passion and strength to her loyal fans.

The First World War has ended, yet its terrible legacy lives on in the mind of a devastated survivor. This poignant story casts personal upheaval against the dramatic social and political changes of post Great War Britain.

Genre: Comedy Characters: 2 males 2 females Scenery: Interior In this play Mr. Levy gives us the blundering and silly ass character ofHenry Dewlip a wealthy young English bachelor. Henry leads a life ofease until he is taken in hand by his apparently prim young secretary who tries to persuade him to forego all his pleasant vices. "Few things on Broadway are so funny. Not for many a night have Iheard such spontaneous laughter in a theater. The audience got up togo with tears in its eyes. Tears that came from laughter." - New York World Telegram