Disparaged as potboilers and disdained as "mere entertainment", boulevard comedies are traditionally given short shrift by critics -- although audiences have warmed to them for over two hundred years. These are the comedies and farces about infidelity, mistaken identity, and misguided amours that have no "redeeming social value". They simply make people laugh. In France, they have been the mainstay of the commercial theatre for over a century and often when "high art" emptied the playhouses, these comedies have played to ...
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Disparaged as potboilers and disdained as "mere entertainment", boulevard comedies are traditionally given short shrift by critics -- although audiences have warmed to them for over two hundred years. These are the comedies and farces about infidelity, mistaken identity, and misguided amours that have no "redeeming social value". They simply make people laugh. In France, they have been the mainstay of the commercial theatre for over a century and often when "high art" emptied the playhouses, these comedies have played to Standing Room Only. In freely translating three of these perennial comedies, Charles Marowitz has demonstrated that fifty million Frenchmen can't be wrong. There is brilliance and buoyancy in these works and Marowitz has given them a face-lift, a shot of adrenaline, and a new lease-on-life. The volume contains Henry Becque's La Parisienne, the grand-daddy of all triangular comedies, Stark Naked, one of Feydeau's more outrageous affronts against the bourgeoisie, and Quack, a musical-vaudeville based on Moliere's The Doctor in Spite of Himself with music by Michael Valenti. All in brand-new translations and adaptations.
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Add this copy of Boulevard Comedies to cart. $20.89, good condition, Sold by Friends Library Bookstore rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Eau Claire, WI, UNITED STATES, published 2000 by Smith & Kraus Pub Inc.
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No Jacket. Book Ex-library with the usual stamps, stickers, and markings. Plastic covered cover. Fold mark on top back cover corner. Pencil notations on front Title page. Gently used copy. 224 pp. Shelf: E-4
Add this copy of Boulevard Comedies 1st Edition to cart. $25.90, new condition, Sold by books4less rated 3.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Glendale, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2000 by Smith & Kraus Pub Inc.
Add this copy of Boulevard Comedies to cart. $20.61, very good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Baltimore rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Halethorpe, MD, UNITED STATES, published 1999 by Smith & Kraus.
Add this copy of Boulevard Comedies to cart. $20.61, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Reno rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Reno, NV, UNITED STATES, published 1999 by Smith & Kraus.
