Kops: Plays One: Playing Sinatra; The Hamlet of Stepney Green; Ezra (Oberon Modern Playwrights)

Bernard Kops

ISBN 10: 1840020717 / ISBN 13: 9781840020717

Published by Oberon Books, 1999

Most items will be dispatched the same or the next working day. An apparently unread copy in perfect condition. Dust cover is intact with no nicks or tears. Spine has no signs of creasing. Pages are clean and not marred by notes or folds of any kind. Seller Inventory # rev4317874374

Synopsis:

Includes the plays Playing Sinatra, The Hamlet of Stepney Green, and Ezra

Playing Sinatra explores with humour our inexhaustible capacity for trying to escape the traps in life.

The Hamlet of Stepney Green, a sad comedy, is full of lively songs. Sam Levy is about to die, and is fearful for the survival of his community of the East End. He is also fearful for his son's future.

Ezra is about the anti-Semitism and treachery of the great poet Ezra Pound, and his subsequent incarceration and remorse.

About the Author:

Bernard Kops (1926-2024) was born in the East-end of London in 1926; into stark poverty and political chaos. He was one of Britain's leading playwrights. The youngest of seven children of an immigrant Dutch-Jewish family, Kops left school at thirteen during the Blitz. He tried his hand at acting and the second hand book trade, drifting through the then-bohemian world of Soho and won sudden, unexpected fame in 1957 with his East End play The Hamlet of Stepney Green. This was drama steeped in the Yiddish theatrical tradition: a sweet-and-sour comedy including brilliant poetry set to music, the play portrayed a dying working-class community through the frustrating relationship between an ailing father and his adult son. He was hailed for it by the critics of the day as a significant contribution to the-then fashion in England for 'kitchen-sink' dramas. It has been performed all over the world. His play about the anti-Semitic poet Ezra Pound was produced first at the Half Moon theatre with Ian MacDiarmid giving one of his finest performances as Ezra. Playing Sinatra, another of his favourite plays has also been produced around the world. It had an incredible reception when it went to Warehouse Croydon and Greenwich Theatre, and opened in April 2012 in Washington D.C. In all, he wrote more than 40 plays, nine novels and two autobiographies. He also ran a master-class for playwrights.

"I would rate Bernard Kops with Sean O' Casey and Arthur Miller. As a poet, he ranks with the other great European poet/playwright, Federico Garcia Lorca: the same passion, directness and lyrical intensity. His poems about nuclear war, about the Holocaust (in which many of his family perished) and more recently about his love for his wife Erica and his immediate family, will be remembered for their shapely form and their personal force. He is a worthy literary descendant of the First World War poet Isaac Rosenberg.'" - Michael Kustow

Bibliographic Details

Title: Kops: Plays One: Playing Sinatra; The Hamlet...
Publisher: Oberon Books
Publication Date: 1999
Binding: paperback
Condition: Like New