2009-02-07
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One of Shakespeare's greatest plays, The Winter's Tale, though written at the same period as The Tempest, smashes all the rules that The Tempest follows. Unity of time, place and action are hurled aside as we range across Europe, from court to country, from high tragedy to low comedy, across a time span of sixteen years. The Winter's Tale tells of a delusional and paranoid king who tears his family apart. But this is the new Shakespeare, after he completed his great tragedies, and the tough struggle for redemption yields flickers of hope. Initial darkness gives way to joy as Time leads the characters to a shattering conclusion...
In their songs, comedy and exuberant music, a travelling theatre company give a fiercely polemic account of Scottish history, from the aftermath of Culloden to the oil boom. Their production before a live audience is intercut with filmed reconstructions of the Highland Clearances and the Victorian obsession with hunting stags.
Witty, playful and utterly magical, the story is a compelling romantic adventure in which Rosalind and Orlando's celebrated courtship is played out against a backdrop of political rivalry, banishment and exile in the Forest of Arden - set in 19th-century Japan.
In occupied Paris, an actress married to a Jewish theater owner must keep him hidden from the Nazis while doing both of their jobs.
A boy who was once a perpetual outcast finds friends in a new boarding school. United with his new peers, he gets involved in a heated rivalry with a group of students from a neighboring school.
Unpolished and ultra-pragmatic industrialist Jean-Jacques Castella reluctantly attends Racine's tragedy "Berenice" in order to see his niece play a bit part. He is taken with the play's strangely familiar-looking leading lady Clara Devaux. During the course of the show, Castella soon remembers that he once hired and then promptly fired the actress as an English language tutor. He immediately goes out and signs up for language lessons. Thinking that he is nothing but an ill-tempered philistine with bad taste, Clara rejects him until Castella charms her off her feet.
In the midst of the Hundred Years War, the young King Henry V of England embarks on the conquest of France in 1415.
Each is dependent on the other. He breaks into the passport office to get a passport. He is surprised and ends up back in prison, where he is trained in military drill. After his release, he once again lodges with relatives, his sister and brother-in-law. Wearing a second-hand captain's uniform, he first takes over a guard unit and uses it to occupy Köpenick town hall, where all the employees of the town council submit to the supposed captain. The mayor is promoted to Berlin and Voigt presents himself to the authorities a few days later. At first, everyone present laughs at the prank, but then Voigt is made aware of the legal consequences. He is sent back to prison, but shortly afterwards he is pardoned by the Emperor.
When a beautiful first-grade teacher arrives at a prep school, she soon attracts the attention of an ambitious teenager named Max, who quickly falls in love with her. Max turns to the father of two of his schoolmates for advice on how to woo the teacher. However, the situation soon gets complicated when Max's new friend becomes involved with her, setting the two pals against one another in a war for her attention.
During a writing slump, playwright J.M. Barrie meets a widow and her four children, all young boys—who soon become an important part of Barrie’s life and the inspiration that lead him to create his masterpiece. Peter Pan.
In trouble with the local authorities, Mabel Simmons, notoriously known as Madea, is on the run from the law. With no place to turn, she moves in with her friend Bam who is recovering from surgery. Unbeknownst to Bam however, Madea is only using the "concerned friend" gag as a way to hide out from the police.
Marcelline is an actress. Forty, single and childless, she begins rehearsals for Turgenev’s A Month in the Country. Denis, the director, admires her greatly and promises he’ll make her happy on stage — she will shine. But things don’t go to plan.
A man and a woman who loved each other find themselves in a cemetery. He is here to attend the funeral of his grandmother, she let herself be lured by this place without really knowing why. The man's parents, who have come to pour out their reproaches, gravitate around the lovers who desire each other and inevitably get closer. But what did they really experience? And do they still have something to live for?
As he prepares to embark on an overseas tour, star actor Garry Essendine’s colourful life is in danger of spiralling out of control. Engulfed by an escalating identity crisis as his many and various relationships compete for his attention, Garry’s few remaining days at home are a chaotic whirlwind of love, sex, panic and soul-searching.