Books in the Student Editions series

The Beauty Queen of Leenane tells the darkly comic tale of Maureen Folan, a plain and lonely woman in her early forties, and Mag her manipulative ageing mother whose interference in Maureen's first and potentially last loving relationship sets in motion a train of events that is as gothically funny as it is horrific.

Who knocked Wee Thomas over on the lonely road on the island of Inishmore, and was it an accident? "Mad Padraig" will want to know when he gets back from a stint of torture and chip shop bombing in Northern Ireland: he loves that cat more than life itself.

A play for younger people, DNA is a poignant and, sometimes, hilarious tale with a very dark heart. It opened at the National Theatre in February 2008.

Inspired by the Chinese play Chalk Circle, and written at the close of World War II, this parable is set in the Caucasus Mountains of Georgia. It re-tells the tale of King Solomon and a child claimed and fought over by two women.

Tony Kushner's lively version of Brecht's parable of good and evil presented in an English/German parallel text edition with an introduction by Tom Kuhn.

A student edition of Marston's classic play

The story of Christy Mahon, a timid peasant youth who is bullied, then rebels. This play of passion, and savage humour disturbed the first audiences at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, in 1907 and led to riots.

This play was published to coincide with its British premiere, directed by Harold Pinter, at the Royal Court Theatre, London.

"Methuen Drama student editions"--Cover.

Chekhov's widely performed classic study of provincial life explores the irony of hope and the inadequacy of consolation.

An Australian penal colony in 1789. A young lieutenant directs rehearsals of the Restoration comedy, "The Recruiting Officer". With a cast of convicts, opposition from sadistic officers and a leading lady who is due to be hanged, Australia's first theatrical production is in trouble from the start.

Five one-act plays from 1976 by Britain's most popular playwright, Ayckbourn's classic series of plays are presented in a Student Edition with a full introduction, commmentary and questions for study.

An expertly annotated edition of Joe Penhall's compelling drama: a dark, exhilarating tale of race, madness and power in the midst of a struggling National Health Service.

Subtitle taken from added title page, opposite colophon.

A Student Edition of McDonagh's The Lonesome West, the final part of his trilogy set in a fictionalized and impoverished western Ireland village called Leenane, first produced in 1971.

Antigone, defying her uncle Creon's decree that her brother should remain unburied, challenges the morality of man's law overruling the laws of the gods. The clash between her and Creon with its tragic consequences have inspired continual reinterpretation. This translation was made for a BBC TV production of the "Theban Plays" in 1986.

Described by Brecht as "a gangster play that would recall certain events familiar to us all", Arturo Ui is a witty and savage satire of the rise of Hitler - recast by Brecht into a small-time Chicago gangster's takeover of the city's greengrocery trade.

The story of a penniless nobody from Moscow who is mistaken for a government inspector by the corrupt and self-seeking officials of a small town in Tsarist Russia, "The Government Inspector", Gogol's masterpiece was regarded by Vladimir Nabokov as the greatest play in the Russian language.

First staged in Britain in 1983, 'Glengarry Glen Ross' is the tale of four real-estate salesmen in a cut-throat sales competition. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1984 and was made into a film, starring Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Kevin Spacey and Alec Baldwin, in 1992. This Student Edition contains a full introduction, commentary and questions for study.

A play which contains an uncompromising depiction of rape, torture and violence in a society at war with itself.

A revised edition of this satirical study of the effects of the Big Bang, which caused the inhabitants of London City to applaud and decry its presentation of their lives. Since then it has provoked city financiers the world over to heated debate.

Based on real events that took place in Oyo, the ancient Yoruba city of Nigeria, in 1946, Nobel Prize-winner Wole Soyinka's play tells how Simon Pilkings, a well-meaning District Officer, intervenes to prevent the ritual suicide of the Yoruba chief, Elesin. This Student Edition includes a full introduction, commentary and questions for study.

This Student Edition of Willy Russell's successful folk opera, the story of two Liverpudlian brothers who grow up on opposite sides of the social tracks, includes biographical notes and an introduction to the play with guidance on its interpretation.

"Mr McDonagh is destined to be one of the theatrical luminaries of the 21st century" (The New Republic)

A masterpiece of Russian drama, now in a student edition

This play, widely considered Strindberg's masterpiece, presents the conflict between sexual passion and social position. Helen Cooper's new translation, premiered at the Greenwich Theatre in 1990, is from a literal by Peter Hogg