Marlene Dietrich: Life and Legend

Book Description

"The finest picture-star biography I have read"
-Peter Bogdanovich, Los Angeles Times

In an achievement as grand and sweeping as Dietrich's own life, Steven Bach reveals the woman and examines her myth in a biography that will stand as the ultimate authority on a singular star. Based on six years of research and hundreds of interviews-including conversations with Dietrich herself-this is the last, best word on one of the century's greatest movie actresses and performers, an icon who embodied glamour and sophistication for audiences around the globe.

Customer Reviews:

Dietrich: the Lord of Discipline.......2002-06-26

Having read Maria Riva's book on her mother along with Dietrich's own autobiography, I didn't really expect any new revelations from this book -- but I couldn't have been more wrong! Mr. Bach is to be congratulated on his fascinating and respectable work honoring Miss Dietrich and her life. What a remarkable performer and a remarkable human being. We could sure use a few more like her in today's world. This is a must read for fans of the Lady and the Legend!!

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No "Angel"
No mere specter of a star

Blue Angel
Donald Spoto
Manufacturer: Doubleday
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Notorious: The Life of Ingrid Bergman

ASIN: 0385425538
Release Date: 1992-07-01

Book Description

In a career that spanned six decades, as a star of stage and screen, Marlene Dietrich created an unforgettable image. She was an international icon.

But that public persona masked the very private woman we meet in this biography. Spoto's story follows Dietrich from pre-war Berlin to Hollywood, which made her a star, to the nightclub stages of the 1950s and '60s, where she polished the legend.

From an unorthodox 52-year marriage to self-imposed seclusion, from her penchant for men's clothing to a lusty appetite for both sexes (Gary Cooper, John Wayne, Maurice Chevalier and George Raft), BLUE ANGEL reveals Dietrich in all her idiosyncratic glory.

"The fabulous book that tells it all. . .a great biography, a provocative appraisal." (Cosmopolitan)

Customer Reviews:

No "Angel".......2004-04-17

Donald Spoto tends to write pleasant, sometimes very insightful biographies that tend to look at different aspects of the stars they focus on. "Blue Angel," however, is not up to par. While his biography of actress Marlene Dietrich is well-written, he seems too disconnected from his subject.

Marlene Dietrich was a dominant sex symbol alongside the distant Greta Garbo. Her big break came with Josef von Sternberg, a German director who found the struggling actress and made her his muse, lover and inspiration. Dietrich kept spreading her wings in Hollywood, and in the 1940s she entertained Allied troops for her adopted country.

Spoto does a pretty good job of covering Dietrich's many-faceted life. Hausfrau and actress, Berlin cabaret and Hollywood, he checks it all out and describes it with a fair amount of detail. And despite the varied nature of Dietrich's love life, he at least tries to keep his tone professional and detached. (Even when describing Dietrich placing a bouquet of violets in a rather, um, intimate place)

What's Spoto's biggest problem? He seems to have no idea what made Dietrich tick. When describing the real Dietrich -- the woman behind the image -- he seems genuinely befuddled by her real personality, and spends too much time speculating on her motivations. However, he sheds a great deal of light on Dietrich's mystique, and how it was created by von Sternberg.

Donald Spoto's "Blue Angel" sheds some light on the not-so-angelic Marlene Dietrich, but his lack of insight into Dietrich's mind makes it a somewhat frustrating read.

No mere specter of a star.......2001-08-31

I found this book an enjoyable and informative read, though at times presented romantically and subjectively. The author does a fine job presenting Dietrich from many angles, truly fleshing her out (Spoto is irritatingly fond of the word "plump" to describe Dietrich's early adulthood)... Spoto seems to approach his subject with celestial reverence, as though trying to conceal his own crush behind a web of historical voyeurism (the discussion of debauched 1920s Berlin is particularly gratifying and grounding). Sometimes he speculates too much on possible motivations instead of simply offering the facts, but he also makes good use of others' reminiscences of Dietrich to back up some of his insightful conjectures. In short, a charming book, though not riveting.

A Woman at War: Marlene Dietrich Remembered (Painted Turtle Book)

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Marlene Is Eternal!

A Woman at War: Marlene Dietrich Remembered (Painted Turtle Book)

Manufacturer: Painted Turtle Book
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0814332498

Book Description

An unprecedented look at the life of cultural icon Marlene Dietrich that brings together firsthand accounts, remembrances, and anecdotes with pictorial and historical documentation.

Customer Reviews:

Marlene Is Eternal!.......2007-03-12

This is a tremendous book on the great Marlene Dietrich. I did see her perform several times and she was unforgettable. This book is a great tribute to her war work and her entire life and career. We will not see her like again and her grandson does her proud in this beautiful volume.

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MARLENE DIETRICH'S ABC
Marlene Dietrich
Manufacturer: Avon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000GRHZ7I

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In the Realm of Pleasure
Gaylyn Studlar
Manufacturer: Columbia University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Masochism: Coldness and Cruelty & Venus in Furs
The Bonds of Love: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, & the Problem of Domination
Undoing Gender

ASIN: 0231082339

Book Description

In a major revision of feminist-psychoanalytic theories of film pleasure and sexual difference, Studlar's close textual analysis of the six Paramount films directed by Josef von Sternberg and starring Marlene Dietrich probes the source of their visual and psychological complexity.

Borrowing from Gilles Deleuze's psychoanalytic-literary approach, Studlar shows how masochism extends beyond the clinical realm, into the arena of artistic form, language, and production of pleasure. The author's examination of the von Sternberg/Dietrich collaborations shows how these films, with the mother figure embodied in the alluring yet androgynous Dietrich, offer a key for understanding film's "masochistic aesthetic."

Studlar argues that masochism's broader significance to film study lies in the similarities between the structures of perversion and those of the cinematic apparatus, as a dream screen reviving archaic visual pleasures for both male and female spectators.

Marlene Dietrich: Photographs and Memories

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Marlene Dietrich's picture appears in the dictionary next to the term "pack rat" :D
La Dietrich
Am amazing book!
Photographs of Beauty
A vulnerable, more open Marlene

Marlene Dietrich: Photographs and Memories
Marlene Dietrich Collection
Manufacturer: Random House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0375405348
Release Date: 2001-11-20

Book Description

Marlene Dietrich never threw away anything.

She kept her good-luck black rag doll (it appeared with her in The Blue Angel and followed her to dressing tables on every movie set). She kept the letters (every last one) she received from her lovers and her husband of fifty-three years. She kept every article of clothing made for her by the great French couturiers and the legendary Hollywood costume designers. She kept everything.

And she believed in storage. Six storage companies, from New York to California, London, and Paris, held pieces of Miss Dietrich’s life, locked away for decades like the pieces of the life of Charles Foster Kane. Over the years, hundreds of thousands of dollars were paid in rental fees. After Dietrich’s death, the articles were gathered together—twenty-five thousand objects and eighteen thousand images. Some were auctioned at Sotheby’s in Los Angeles. The major pieces of Dietrich’s vast collection were assembled in an archive and given to the FilmMuseum Berlin.

Now, her treasures are brought together in 289 photographs from her own collection, with extended captions by her daughter, Maria Riva.

We see Dietrich as a child, in velvet dress and golden ringlets...Dietrich as a young actress in Berlin...as the newly married Mrs. Rudolf Sieber, standing proudly with her husband. We see love letters and letters marking the ends of affairs. We see Dietrich in Hollywood...with Chaplin...with Fritz Lang...at the Paramount commissary...Dietrich captured in snapshots by her movie-creator, Josef von Sternberg...Dietrich as a mother.

We see her at war...in never-before-published photographs of a USO tour...in uniform (tailor-made for her, of course) disembarking from a transport plane...Dietrich with the 82nd Airborne...Dietrich rolling into Germany in
a U.S. tank.

Here she is with her directors and fellow actors: Katharine Hepburn, Claudette Colbert, Judy Garland, John Wayne, Ernst Lubitsch, Clark Gable, Cary Grant, Tyrone Power. Here are portraits of her by Cecil Beaton, Horst P. Horst, Milton Greene, John Engstead. And here is Marlene, shimmering, in Las Vegas, the consummate performer, and at the Palladium in London, triumphant!

Customer Reviews:

Marlene Dietrich's picture appears in the dictionary next to the term "pack rat" :D.......2007-06-23

Seriously. This lady apparently never threw away ANYTHING. She didn't even throw away the "Glorious Aryan Motherhood" medal she got from the Nazis in 1938 in an effort to entice her back to the Third Reich, though she was much offended by the "award" and described her displeasure in pithy terms. Conversely, she proudly told her daughter, Maria Riva, that whereas most daughters inherit medals from their fathers, Maria would inherit medals from her mother, and these decorations (including the U.S. Medal of Freedom and two degrees of the French Legion of Honor) are displayed in one of the book's many color photographs.

This splendid book is a Marlene Dietrich museum all by its lonesome. Gorgeous photographs from every stage of her career (including some very sexy and risque ones displaying her famous legs to best advantage!) are coupled with a visual catalogue of the most interesting of her clothing and possessions, including her famous good-luck rag doll, which appeared in several of her movies, and a pair of matched pistols she received from General George Patton (with whom she is rumored to have had an affair) during World War II.

Speaking of which, Marlene's WWII service, one of the great defining experiences of her life, gets full attention in this book, with many very striking photos of herself at the front. My favorite pictures from this period show her watching a training drop by the 82nd Airborne Division, the unit closest to her heart, in Holland in early 1945.

Marlene, of course, is famed as one of the great style-setters of the 20th century, and we see many, many photos of her outfits and accessories, both as display items and when she was wearing them.

Can I use the word "splendid" twice in one review? :) Because that is exactly what this book is. It's a bargain at any price you care to name, and one of the best retrospectives on any great film star I've ever seen.

La Dietrich.......2003-06-24

If you were a fan of Dietrich and were allowed to own only ONE book about this woman, then this should be the book to own. To reiterate another reviewer's thought -- it is EXQUISITE.

Am amazing book!.......2002-12-30

This is a dream of a book. Full of glorious photos and facts. I highly reccommend this to all Dietrich and film fans. All public figures should be the subject of a book like this.

Photographs of Beauty.......2002-06-29

A delicacy! The best book of photographs I have seen on Dietrich and a compendium of beauty, not only hers but all that was created through and with her. A must have book.

A vulnerable, more open Marlene.......2001-12-04

Here are images we've never seen before. The ones of her life on the front in W.W. II are amazing. Brave woman fighting for the US soldiers. And the picture of her in the bathtub is worth the book alone. The private dresses, her lingerie, her jewels -- these are amazing.

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A zany delight, well ahead of it's time.
THIS IS IT!
One of the funniest books I can imagine
Hilarious.

Marlene Dietrich's ABC
Marlene Dietrich
Manufacturer: Ungar
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0804461171

Customer Reviews:

A zany delight, well ahead of it's time........2006-09-23

A collection of opinions on random words listed alphabetically published in 1962.....sounds pretty dry....but with the sharpwitted Miss Dietrich behind those thoughts, this book is nothing less than utterly brilliant...and at times funnier than all those played out latenight jokesters rolled together. The legendary glamour queen's absolutely straightforward (and seemingly spontaneous) responses go from dull, peculiar, strangely personal and highly sentimental to outright wacky and some so outrageously funny (and seriously honest) , you'll be quoting her frequently! A perfect book for roadtrips and for fueling a party that's losing it's fizz.

THIS IS IT!.......2001-12-04

THIS BOOK IS THE ULTIMATE PORTRAIT OF A LEGEND, IN HER OWN WORDS. AND I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT A DAY BY DAY ACCOUNT, HER VEIWS, OPINIONS, AND RECIPIES, TELL THE READER MORE ABOUT THE WOMAN THAT WAS BEHIND ONE OF THE MOST UNFORGETTABLE IMAGES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. SHE WOULD FOREVER CHANGE THE WAY THE WORLD WOULD LOOK AT WOMEN, AGE, SEX, AND FAME. ESSENTIAL!

One of the funniest books I can imagine.......2000-12-25

Here are Marlene Dietrich's thoughts. All of them. And in no particular order other than alphabetical.

You won't wonder for one second whether or not she had a ghostwriter, because what ghostwriter could ever have dreamed up something as bizarre as this collection of non sequiturs? Her thoughts range not only from "Astaire, Fred" ("Elegant! Elegant! Elegant!") to "Zabaglione" (one of the many, MANY recipes she provides which consists--like most of her recipes--of sugar, egg yolks, and cream, in varying proportions) but also her thoughts on the Beatles, preparing meat, and other topics of mindboggling importance.

After reading this book, you'll never again be able to look at eggs without thinking of La Dietrich's mysterious comment about them: "I love them! I eat them!"

Hilarious........1999-05-02

This book is great! Dietrich had a sense of humor, which she displays in this book. She calls it her "gallows humor." The book is an alphabetical list of words, and Dietrich's thoughts on each of them. Some are expected, like "sex," but some are completely out of the blue, like "frying pan." I highly recommend this book to anybody.

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Dietrich Icon

Manufacturer: Duke University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 082233819X

Book Description

Few movie stars have meant as many things to as many different audiences as the iconic Marlene Dietrich. The actress-chanteuse had a career of some seventy years: one that included not only classical Hollywood cinema and the concert hall but also silent film in Weimar Germany, theater, musical comedy, vaudeville, army camp shows, radio, recordings, television, and even the circus. Having renounced and left Nazi Germany, assumed American citizenship, and entertained American troops, Dietrich has long been a flashpoint in Germany’s struggles over its cultural heritage. She has also figured prominently in European and American film scholarship, in studies ranging from analyses of the directors with whom she worked to theories about the ideological and psychic functions of film. Dietrich Icon, which includes essays by established and emerging film scholars, is a unique examination of the many meanings of Dietrich.

Some of the essays in this collection revisit such familiar topics as Germany’s complex relationship with Dietrich, her ambiguous sexuality, her place in the lesbian archive, her star status, and her legendary legs, but with fresh critical perspective and an emphasis on historical background. Other essays establish new avenues for understanding Dietrich’s persona. Among these are a reading of Marlene Dietrich’s ABCâan eclectic autobiographical compendium containing Dietrich’s thoughts on such diverse subjects as âsteak,â âSternberg (Joseph von),â âStravinsky,â and âstupidityââand an argument that Dietrich manipulated her voiceâthrough her accent, sexual innuendo, and singingâas much as her visual image in order to convey a cosmopolitan world-weariness. Still other essays consider the specter of aging that loomed over Dietrich’s career, as well as the many imitations of the Dietrich persona that have emerged since the star’s death in 1992.

Contributors. Nora M. Alter, Steven Bach, Elisabeth Bronfen, Erica Carter, Mary R. Desjardins, Joseph Garncarz, Gerd GemÃ¼nden, Mary Beth Haralovich, Amelie Hastie, Lutz Koepnick, Alice A. Kuzniar, Amy Lawrence, Judith Mayne, Patrice Petro, Eric Rentschler, Gaylyn Studlar, Werner Sudendorf, Mark Williams

Marlene Dietrich (A Pyramid illustrated history of the movies)

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Marlene Dietrich (A Pyramid illustrated history of the movies)
Charles Silver
Manufacturer: Pyramid Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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ASIN: 0515034843

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Marlene Deitrich
Extremely interesting and candid
"Songs, sequins, sex, and sympathy."
One of the Best Bios I've Read
Refreshing and candid.

Marlene Dietrich
Maria Riva
Manufacturer: Random House Value Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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Marlene

ASIN: 0517166208
Release Date: 1996-01-30

Book Description

"Gossipy...Elabroately detailed...Greatly entertaining...Riva leaves no sequin unturned."
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Marlene Deitrich was considered one of the most glamorous stars of her day. A determined perfectionist with an incredible ego, her beauty, her style, her sense of the outrageous, made her a star. In this candid, illuminating, and detailed biography full of photographs, her only daughter Maria Riva, tells the incredible, fascinating, story of the star's life and career, loves and hates, hits and misses, as only a daughter can.

From the Trade Paperback edition.

Customer Reviews:

Marlene Deitrich.......2006-11-11

WOW! 800 pages.....I have only begun to dig into this book.....
but it is worth it if you love bios and Marlene......

Extremely interesting and candid.......2006-06-09

Not a fluff piece by any means, and very well told story. This is no "Mommy Dearest" The complexities-- the ups and downs, the good and bad both-- of a compelling and original 20th century star.

"Songs, sequins, sex, and sympathy.".......2005-11-26

In this astonishingly honest biography of Marlene Dietrich from birth to age 73, her daughter Maria Riva reveals the truth about her mother as it contrasts with the sometimes embellished stories of the Dietrich legend. She does this with love, a sense of understanding of the needs of this complex woman, and with a surprising humor which is never deprecating. The resulting biography shows Dietrich in an almost heroic light--but not for the actions which have become part of her show-biz mystique. Her real life and her real commitments, many of which are far less celebrated, often prove to be more remarkable than the stories promulgated by the press.

Dietrich began keeping diaries and journals at age ten, and her daughter uses these and her personal knowledge to show Dietrich's life in three phases. The first part includes her family background, childhood, acting studies, early career, and decision to pursue a film career in Hollywood, and also incorporates her marriage to Rudolf Sieber (which lasted fifty years) and the birth of her daughter. In Part II, her decision to become an American citizen, help actively with the American war effort, and work tirelessly for the USO in America, Europe, and Africa shows a commitment to helping others that belies her cold, sexy image. In Part III, her postwar career in Las Vegas and on tour, despite her undiagnosed health problems, reveal her dedication to remaining a "goddess" on stage and in the public imagination.

Throughout the biography, Riva's honesty, including her awareness of her mother's faults, is always tempered by her respect for Dietrich's integrity and her commitment to entertaining--Dietrich, she says, was "the embodiment of other people's dreams." She details Dietrich's long love affairs with director Josef von Sternberg, with whom she made seven films, with French actor Jean Gabin during the war, and with Yul Brynner in the 1950s, along with shorter relationships with many other show business personalities, generals during the war, and composers and directors.

Though Kenneth Tynan once referred to the fact that Dietrich oozed "sex without gender," Riva pays little attention to the interest Dietrich may have had in other women, and to Dietrich's boast that she had slept with three members of the Kennedy clan. Her "inside look" at Dietrich as she grows older and keeps performing despite serious circulatory and cardiac problems, and her ability to share the "secrets" Dietrich used to enhance her image and hide her flaws, make Dietrich-the-Legend come to life. Written in an informal, straightforward style, Riva continues the legend despite her revelations--she just revises it a bit and makes it more realistic. n Mary Whipple

One of the Best Bios I've Read.......2005-05-30

There are great autobiographies or memoirs written by friends of celebrities that consist of personal information and small tidbits that greatly interest readers. Then there are biographies, often more informational and objective than autobiographies. This book is composed of both which makes it one of the best books about a celebrity around.

Maria Riva is the daughter of legend Marlene Dietrich, an androgynous star of the 1930s, 40s, 50s, and 60s. One would believe that a daughter would be the most biased person to write a biography but this is not the case in this book. Riva has moments where she shares personal information but she always cites when she does so as to not confuse readers from fact and observation. She has included diary entries, letters from lovers, and a bevy of other sources including other acquaintances of Dietrich in the book. She reveals things that her mother made up for the press and what her mother really thought about things like films, other stars, and sex.

Riva always remains objective and portrays her mother respectably even in embarrassing or hateful situations because she is aware of the multitude of fans of Dietrich. She does not praise simply to praise though; she seems to understand the adoration of the facade Marlene Dietrich showed the world. Riva talks about how she had to trick her mother into being treated for a cancer she swore she didn't have. She writes about her mother forcing her to get fitted for a diaphragm before she traveled overseas to entertain the troops during the second World War. Even when she speaks of when Dietrich told Riva's sons that their mother had stolen them from her, she does not try to persuade readers to hate her mother.

This is an incredible book. Enjoy this jewel of writing.

Refreshing and candid........2004-09-20

A favorite passtime of mine is browsing my corner bookstore in my lunch break, and I have a weakness for biographies. Can't seem to get enough of them! But I am reasonably clean when it comes to other dangerous addictions.

While daydreaming, I stumbled over a biography written by Marlene's daughter, Maria Riva.

It was (surprisingly) well written, and I ended up skipping lunch altogether to read instead.

Apparently some talent from mom's boyfriends has rubbed off on Marlene's daughter, Maria.

I was especially intrigued by the relations to Erich Remarque;-- that affair of Marlene's might have been one of the longest relationships in her glittering gallery of affairs.

I read a lot of Remarque's books in my young days, and I still return to them from time to time.

Actually, Remarque is the reason I was reading anything about all of this in the first place.

Review by Palle Jorgensen, September 2004.

Book Description

The classic plays of the quintessential Dublin playwright

Three early plays by Sean O'Casey--arguably his three greatest--demonstrate vividly O'Casey's ability to convey the reality of life and the depth of human emotion, specifically in Dublin before and during the Irish civil war of 1922-23, but, truly, throughout the known universe. In mirroring the lives of the Dublin poor, from the tenement dwellers in The Shadow of a Gunman and Juno and the Paycock to the bricklayer, street vendor, and charwoman in The Plough and the Stars, Sean O'Casey conveys with urgency and eloquence the tiny details that create a total character as well as the terrors, large and small, that the constant threat of political violence inevitably brings. As Seamus Heaney has written, "O'Casey's characters are both down to earth and larger than life . . . His democratic genius was at one with his tragic understanding, and his recoil from tyranny and his compassion for the oppressed were an essential--as opposed to a moral and thematic--part of his art."

A new production of Juno and the Paycock will transfer from the Donmar Theatre in London to New York in September 2000.

Customer Reviews:

CHOCKY AR LA (OUR TIME WILL COME).......2007-07-23

The history of Ireland is replete with `times of troubles', no question about that. The particular ` time of troubles' that the master Anglo- Irish socialist playwright Sean O'Casey takes on in these three classic and best known of his plays is the time from the Easter Uprising in 1916 to the time of the lesser known Civil War battles between Free Staters and die-hard Republicans in 1921-22. Needless to say they were all classified as tragedies by O'Casey. What qualified O'Casey to do much more than provide yeoman's cultural service to this period? Well, for one he helped organize the famous James Connolly-led Irish Citizen's Army that took part in the heroic Easter Uprising in 1916. For another, O'Casey was a true son of the Dublin tenements where the action of the three plays takes place. He KNEW the `shawlie' environment and the language of despair, duplicity and treachery that is the lot of the desperately poor. Finally, as an Anglo- Irishman he had that very fine ear for the English language that we have come to cherish from the long line of Irish poets and playwrights who have graced our culture. That said, please read about this period in Irish history but also please read these plays if you want to put that history in proper perspective- in short, to understand why the hell the British had to go then from Ireland. Below are capsule summaries of the three plays.

Juno and the Paycock- the Boyles, the central characters in this play, have benefited from the creation of the Free State but at a cost, namely the incapacity of their son. Their daughter has seemingly better prospects, but that will remain to be seen. The device that holds this play together is the hope of good fortune that allegedly is coming under the terms of a relative of Captain Boyle's will. The ebb and flow of events around that fortune drives the drama as does the fickleness of the tenement crowd who gather to `benefit' from it. There is also a very lively and, from this distance, seemingly stereotyped camaraderie between the Captain and his `boyo' Joxer.

The Shadow of a Gunman- the gun has always played, and continues to play, an important part in the Irish liberation struggle. That premise was no different in 1920 than it is today. Whether the gun alone, in the absence of a socialist political program, can create the Workers Republic that O'Casey strove for is a separate question. What is interesting here is what happens, literally, when by mistake and misdirection, a couple of free-floating Irish males of indeterminate character and politics are assumed to be gunmen but are not. It is not giving anything in the play away to state that the real heroine of this action is a woman, Minnie, who in her own patriotic republican way takes the situation as good coin. The Minnies of this world may not lead the revolution but you sure as hell cannot have one without them (and their preparedness to sacrifice).

The Plough and the Stars- There was a time when to even say the words plough and stars brought a little tear to this reviewer's eye. Well he is a big boy now but the question posed here between duty to the liberation struggle in 1916 and its consequences on the one hand and, for lack of a better word, romance and family life on the other is still one to be reckoned with. That it had such tragic consequences for the young tenement couple Jack and Nora only underlines the problem of love and war in real life, as on the stage.

Highlights of Irish Theatre.......2004-02-07

Sean O'Casey was something of an anomaly on the Irish literary scene in the early 20th Century. While his fellow artistes (extra e being intentional) were lofty in their ideals and flowery in their language, writing often in rhyme or blank verse, O'Casey was very much the man of the people. Yeates, Synge and Beckett were concerned with ideals, classical parallells, celtic revival and universality while O'Casey painted the life of the working classes.

In that regard O'Casey holds a lot in common with Russian writers of the period, and with marxist treatments. But in the Holy Catholic Ireland of his day he was viewed with suspicion by the authorities and with contempt by the artistic aristocracy.

So it is somewhat fitting that the three plays in this book have more to say about the period than most of the "great" contemporary Irish works of the day. Certainly they have become far more popular and remain accessible to many people both thorough professional and amateur productions.

For me, O'Casey is at his best when he is in the tenament room with the ordinary people, and this is what makes Juno and the Paycock the most enjoyable of these plays. Layabout workshy men supported on the backs of strong hard women are as universal a theme you can get, but it is a theme made funny and poignant by O'Casey.

The Plough and the Stars is a milestone portrayal of the events of the Easter Rising on the ordinary people of Dublin, for whom the events were a frightening irrelevance that pulled them out of their daily struggle with hunger into a greater struggle for freedom and nationality. This turning point is captured with sheer brilliance by O'Casey, but it is left up to the theater producer to maximise it, and I have seen good and really horrendous productions of this work.

Customer Reviews:

Wonderful play.......2007-06-12

This play is so beautiful.
I wish I could see a performance.

Average customer rating:

The Plough and the Stars (Faber Plays)
Sean O'Casey
Manufacturer: Faber and Faber
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Drama | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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Autobiographies II: Inishfallen, Fare Thee Well, Rose and Crown, Sunset and Evening Star Star
Sean O'Casey
Manufacturer: Carroll & Graf Pub
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0881840750

Sean O'Casey: Plays 2: The Shadow of a Gunman, The Plough and the Stars, The Silver Tassie, Purple Dust, Hall of Healing (Contemporary Classics)

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Sean O'Casey: Plays 2: The Shadow of a Gunman, The Plough and the Stars, The Silver Tassie, Purple Dust, Hall of Healing (Contemporary Classics)
Sean O'Casey
Manufacturer: Faber & Faber
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Sean O'Casey: Plays 1: Juno and the Paycock, Within the Gates; Red Roses; Cock-a-Doodle Dandy (Contemporary Classics)
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ASIN: 0571191827

Book Description

Sean O'Casey Plays 2, introduced by Arthur Miller, documents O'Casey's transition from realism to his use of expressionism and symbolism.

The Shadow of the Gunman and The Plough with Stars, two installments in the Dublin Trilogy, give a realistic look at life in the slums of Dublin. Meanwhile, The Silver Tassie, originally rejected by William Bulter Yeats (director of the Abbey Threatre), is a tragicomedy based on the cruel horrors of World War I. It shows the price which the common people have to pay for the stupidities of war. Purple Dust and Hell and Healing are also included in this volume which show O'Casey's use of expressionism and symbolism.

Sean O'Casey: Critical Guide / Three Dublin Plays: The Shadow of a Gunman, Juno and the Paycock, The Plough and the Stars (Faber Critical Guides)

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This book doesn't contain the plays.....

Sean O'Casey: Critical Guide / Three Dublin Plays: The Shadow of a Gunman, Juno and the Paycock, The Plough and the Stars (Faber Critical Guides)
Christopher Murray
Manufacturer: Faber & Faber
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Performing Arts | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Three Dublin Plays: The Shadow of a Gunman, Juno and the Paycock, & The Plough and the Stars
Opened Ground: Selected Poems, 1966-1996

ASIN: 0571197809

Book Description

The next installment in The Faber Critical Guides Series: An in-depth look at the maverick Irish playwright

Sean O'Casey was one of the most affecting playwrights of his generation; a renegade who came of age at the dawn of Ireland's fight for independence from Britain and championed the working-class during the bleak years of The Great Depression. Praised for his genius-ear for dialogue and the poetry of his prose, O'Casey's work brought audiences into the gritty, impoverished world of Dublin's streets and pubs. His controversial plays helped establish the reputation of the internationally renowned Abbey Theatre, where the productions of The Plough and the Stars and Juno and the Paycock were met with riots and vigorous protests.

In Sean O'Casey, Christopher Murray examines the abovementioned works as well as The Shadow of a Gunman, which taken together comprise O'Casey's famed Dublin trilogy, and elucidates the social context of the plays and the theatrical environment of the times--crucial elements in understanding O'Casey's writing.

Customer Reviews:

This book doesn't contain the plays............2001-04-08

which is something that it failed to mention. I was very disappointed in the fact that all it contains is a critique of O'Casey and the plays.

Book Description

In his early forties, while continuing to support himself as a laborer, we wrote, in quick succession three realistic plays about the slums of Dublin, known as the Dublin Trilogy. Juno and the Paycock, the second installment of the trilogy, was performed in the Abbey Theatre in 1924—the Abbey theatre produced the first installment of the trilogy, The Shadow of a Gunman (not included in this volume) in 1923. Juno and the Paycock deals with the unpleasantness of war and the misery of the victims during the the Irish struggle for indepenence. It was awarded the Hawthornden Prize.

As his career progressed, O'Casey experiemented with expressionism and symbolism, which resulted in Within the Gates; Red Roses for Me, a semiautobiographical work; and Cock-a-Doodle Dandy. Due to an increase of nationalism during the Civil War and Irish Independence movement, his plays were received well, although, at times, with protest and restriction.

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Sean O'Casey, Autobiographies 1
Sean O'Casey
Manufacturer: Carroll & Graf Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0881840491

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