My son is dead and sitting on the throne.Orthodox Russia stands alone, defiant against the Roman Catholic and Protestant West. The Kremlin has suppressed all opposition and keeps a ruthless grip on power with the support of the church and an appeal to nationalist sentiment. In Poland, a formidable young opponent appears: Dmitry. At his back a Polish army fuelled by fear of the Russian threat marches on Moscow.But is he who he thinks he...

After ten years at war, Odysseus returns to Ithaka to find his palace in the hands of violent men. These mortal enemies are overcome but the ghosts of war are not so easily vanquished. Drawing on the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, and loosely following the model of classical Greek drama, Peter Oswald explores the personal journey behind the fantastic one, and asks what it means to be a hero.

The ancient Hindu epic poem The Ramayana tells of the journey of Rama, an incarnation of God, to set free his wife Sita from the demon Ravana. This divine story, here set forth in dramatic form, encapsulates the rise of humanity from animal to God. It was produced at the Birmingham Rep in 2000, and at the RNT in 2001.

Lucian Willow has a dark past; so dark he can't remember it. Twenty years after the end of the Second World War, a former Army Chaplain lives in a state of amnesia on his old comrade Lord Brook's country estate, deep in the slumbering fields of England. The arrival of a circus from across the channel – with its anarchic forces of magic and comedy – impels these wounded men to confront their horrifying and entangled past. Written in verse and prose, Lucifer Saved is described as an...

A comedy written for the Shakespeare's Globe, telling the story of an insatiably curious young man who, wishing to turn himself into a wise owl, takes the wrong drug and finds himself transformed into an ass. His subsequent travels lead him to encounter the chaos of human desire from the perspective of a servile donkey. The most exquisite tale in this wonderful epic, as originally told by Lucius Apuleius, is the first known account of the marriage of Cupid and Psyche, which is perhaps the ...

Augustine's Oak, the first play to be commissioned for Shakespeare's new Globe Theatre, is the story of St Augustine's mission in 597 AD to reconcile the Christians of the Celtic Church with the authority of Rome.

Don Carlos and Mary Stuart, two of German literature's greatest dramas, deal with the timeless issues of power, freedom, and justice. Dating from 1787 and 1800 respectively, one play was written before the French Revolution, the other in its aftermath. Both dramatize periods of crisis in sixteenth-century Europe, and in doing so reflect Schiller's passionate engagement with the great themes of his own age - justice, power, freedom of conscience, legitimacy of government. ...

Descending from the heavenly sphere of the gods to the mortal world below, Arcturus raises a mighty storm. For Labrax, a ‘procurer’ of women, the storm brings shipwreck and ruin. For his two female captives it offers a chance of escape. Washed up on a rocky coastline the two women seek refuge in the shrine of Venus, but it seems that the goddess alone cannot protect them. They are forced to rely instead on the help of the elderly Daemones, who is already struggling to control his reluctant...

Don Carlos and Mary Stuart, two of German literature's greatest dramas, deal with the timeless issues of power, freedom, and justice. Dating from 1787 and 1800 respectively, one play was written before the French Revolution, the other in its aftermath. Both dramatize periods of crisis in sixteenth-century Europe, and in doing so reflect Schiller's passionate engagement with the great themes of his own age - justice, power, freedom of conscience, legitimacy of government. ...

Archipelago is one of the most important and influential literary magazines of the lasttwenty years. Running to twelve editions, it was edited by Andrew McNeillie, with theassistance later of James McDonald Lockhart, and began as an attempt to reimagine therelationships between the islands of Ireland and Britain. Archipelago has brought togetherestablished and emerging artists in creative conversations that have transformed the studyof islands, coasts and...

A new version of the classic French romantic comedy from Peter Oswald.Cursed with the looks of a clown, he weaves his secret longing into love letters of exquisite beauty that he will never dare to send. All he needs is a perfect nose to match his perfect prose. The handsome Christian has also fallen for Roxane – but while he looks like a god, he sounds like a fool.Sacrificing physical love for fantasy, Cyrano hands his words of love to Christian to speak for them both. Wil...

Schiller's play of 1800 pits Mary Queen of Scots against her rival Elizabeth of England. The meeting never happened, but Goethe claimed 'It will be good to see those whores alongside each other.'Schiller's Mary redeems her youthful crimes through an ordeal that lifts her into the realms of spiritual serenity, while Elizabeth descends deeper into rage, revenge and deception.Peter Oswald's version, mixing poetry and prose, opened at the Donmar Warehouse in London’s West End in...