Henry Popkin

Mrs Alving has dedicated herself to suppressing knowledge of her late husband's sexual exploits but their son Oswald's inherited syphilis is the living proof. Oswald is to marry Regina, the maid, but it is revealed that she is Captain Alving's illegitimate daughter. Mrs Alving's memorial to her husband, a newly built orphanage, is burned to the ground. As the play ends, we are left wondering whether Mrs Alving will help Oswald to escape the final...

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is one of the most enduring and frequently performed plays of contemporary theater and has firmly established itself in the dramatic canon. Acclaimed as a modern masterpiece, it is the fabulously inventive tale of Hamlet as told from the worm's-eye view of the bewildered Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two minor characters in Shakespeare's play. In Tom Stoppard's best-known work, this Shakespearean Laurel and Hardy...