{"title":"Series: In Performance","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe \u003cem\u003eIn Performance\u003c\/em\u003e series offers a diverse exploration of ideas and stories across multiple disciplines, from the rigour of \u003cstrong\u003eFinance \u0026amp; Investment\u003c\/strong\u003e and the strategy of \u003cstrong\u003eBusiness \u0026amp; Entrepreneurship\u003c\/strong\u003e to the insights of \u003cstrong\u003ePhilosophy \u0026amp; Psychology\u003c\/strong\u003e and the complexities of \u003cstrong\u003eComputing \u0026amp; Technology\u003c\/strong\u003e. Each title invites readers to engage deeply with the principles and challenges shaping their world.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis collection also embraces narrative breadth, featuring works that traverse \u003cstrong\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Military\u003c\/strong\u003e, inspire with \u003cstrong\u003eChildren’s Books\u003c\/strong\u003e, and transport through \u003cstrong\u003eTravel \u0026amp; Adventure\u003c\/strong\u003e. Whether seeking thoughtful analysis or imaginative journeys, readers will find a compelling blend of knowledge and creativity within the series.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"the-intricate-art-of-actually-caring-and-other-new-zealand-plays-9780857423405","title":"The Intricate Art of Actually Caring, and Other New Zealand Plays","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTheatre in New Zealand began as a tool of the British Empire, imported along with Christianity, seeds, and other commodities as a way of acculturating the indigenous Māori population. In the decades since, it has been turned to different ends, and is now a crucial outlet for the voices of the ever more diverse population of New Zealanders.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis collection gathers some of the most interesting recent plays that engage explicitly with social issues. They are organised so that, together, they present a vivid picture of what it means to be living in New Zealand in the first decades of the twenty-first century, as people grapple with lingering colonialism and the increasing globalisation of everyday life.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Intricate Art of Actually Caring, and Other New Zealand Plays\u003c\/em\u003e offers readers an insightful exploration into contemporary theatre from this unique part of the world.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47461578997996,"sku":"9780857423405","price":85.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780857423405-the-intricate-art-of-actually-caring-and-other-new-zealand-plays.jpg?v=1774971764"},{"product_id":"rechnitz-and-the-merchants-contracts-by-elfriede-jelinek-9780857422255","title":"Rechnitz and The Merchant's Contracts","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor much of her career, Elfriede Jelinek has been maligned in the press for both her unrelenting critique of Austrian complicity in the Holocaust and her provocative deconstructions of pornography. Despite this, her central role in shaping contemporary literature was finally recognised in 2004 with the award of the Nobel Prize in Literature. The committee acknowledged Jelinek’s groundbreaking work that offers a “musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that with extraordinary linguistic zeal reveal the absurdity of society’s clichés and their subjugating power.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAlthough she is an internationally recognised playwright, Jelinek’s work is difficult to find in English, which makes this new volume, which includes \u003ci\u003eRechnitz: The Exterminating Angel\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Merchant’s Contracts\u003c\/i\u003e, all the more valuable.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eRechnitz\u003c\/i\u003e, a chorus of messengers reports on the circumstances of the massacre of 180 Jews, an actual historical event that took place near the Austrian\/Hungarian border town of Rechnitz. More than a docu-drama, this work explores the very transmission of historic memory and has been called Jelinek’s best performance text to date.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eThe Merchant’s Contracts\u003c\/i\u003e, Jelinek brings us a comedy of economics, where the babble and media spin of spectators leave small investors alienated and bearing the brunt of the economic crisis. In the age of the global economy, Jelinek turns the story of a merchant of Vienna into a universal comedy of errors, making this her most accessible work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAlong with an extensive introduction by the translator that both contextualises and analyses the two brilliant texts, a DVD of performances of both plays accompanies this volume. Available for the first time in English, this is a collection that testifies to the power and universality of Jelinek’s work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47464183562476,"sku":"9780857422255","price":85.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780857422255-rechnitz-and-the-merchant-s-contracts.jpg?v=1775040442"},{"product_id":"i-love-xxx-by-jinghui-meng-9780857423849","title":"I Love XXX","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSince premiering his pioneering linguistic experiment \u003cem\u003eI Love XXX\u003c\/em\u003e in Beijing nearly twenty-five years ago, Meng Jinghui has been credited with revitalizing Chinese theatre by popularising the avant-garde. Mixing high culture with mass culture, his plays address China’s enduring revolutionary nostalgia and current social problems, challenging the artistic status quo from the mainstream rather than the margins. His creations range from new interpretations of canonical Western masters like Shakespeare and Genet to improvisational collaborations with actors on original works.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis anthology from China’s most influential theatre creator makes his plays available to an international readership in English for the first time. The collection, chosen by Meng and Chinese theatre scholar and translator Claire Conceison, represents the breadth of Meng’s work and illuminates late twentieth- and twenty-first-century creative practices that transcend the conventional category of playwright.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eI Love XXX\u003c\/em\u003e includes the title piece, \u003cem\u003eLonging for Worldly Pleasures\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe Bedbug\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eHead Without Tail\u003c\/em\u003e, and \u003cem\u003eTwo Dogs’ Opinions on Life\u003c\/em\u003e, as well as a DVD featuring selected scenes from each of the plays.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47470858993900,"sku":"9780857423849","price":85.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/7dd69def8e6a69663055c09a7e0334ce.jpg?v=1775792776"},{"product_id":"instructions-for-breathing-and-other-plays-by-caridad-svich-9780857421111","title":"Instructions for Breathing and Other Plays","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBy turns astonishing, fierce, and tender, these seven plays by Latina-American dramatist Caridad Svich highlight more than two decades of boundary-breaking and genre-defying dramatic work. Populated by characters struggling to survive, these plays are joined by thematic threads of loss, remembrance, resurrection, grave wit, and heroic survival.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe centrepiece of this collection, \u003ci\u003eInstructions for Breathing\u003c\/i\u003e, is a lyrical, dreamlike meditation on responsibility and parenthood that asks an audience not only to suffer the unthinkable loss of a child as Svich's characters do, but also to laugh at the couple’s flaws and at the hilarity of the suburban life they lead. This commingling of emotion happens in each of these dramatic portraits of homeless castaways (\u003ci\u003eFugitive Pieces\u003c\/i\u003e), women in war (\u003ci\u003eThrush\u003c\/i\u003e), and sex traffickers (\u003ci\u003eRift\u003c\/i\u003e).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAnd Svich’s work is not without a nod to the classical: \u003ci\u003eWreckage\u003c\/i\u003e reframes the story of Medea and \u003ci\u003eSteal Back Light from the Virtual\u003c\/i\u003e depicts a labyrinthine society torn apart by a monstrous beast. In sum, \u003ci\u003eInstructions for Breathing and Other Plays\u003c\/i\u003e serves as an illuminating introduction to the work of a major playwright and an inspiring example of the breadth of possibilities in North American drama.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47470868103404,"sku":"9780857421111","price":47.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780857421111-instructions-for-breathing-and-other-plays.jpg?v=1775229551"},{"product_id":"thousand-years-waiting-and-other-plays-by-chiori-miyagawa-9780857420206","title":"Thousand Years Waiting and Other Plays","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe seven plays that comprise Chiori Miyagawa’s \u003cem\u003eThousand Years Waiting and Other Plays\u003c\/em\u003e explore themes of memory and identity. Her plays combine poetic language with harsh reality, and time and space are fluid in the worlds she creates—they converge and separate while the characters inhabit many dimensions at once with ease.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn one way or another, the heroes and heroines of these plays are outsiders—emotionally (as in \u003cem\u003eAwakening\u003c\/em\u003e), physically (as in \u003cem\u003eComet Hunter\u003c\/em\u003e) or socially (as in \u003cem\u003eBroken Morning\u003c\/em\u003e), and the line that separates life and death is thin.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn the title play, a woman in New York City begins to live in the world of a thousand-year-old Japanese memoir that she is reading. The characters in \u003cem\u003eLeaving Eden\u003c\/em\u003e enter, exit, and re-enter Anton Chekhov’s Russia from 1887 to 1904, only to end up at a wedding reception in 2005 in New York where Chekhov appears and takes a seat at a table.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eInspired by the 1899 Kate Chopin novella of the same name, \u003cem\u003eAwakening\u003c\/em\u003e follows Edna in her journey toward death, through fragmented childhood memories and visions of freedom. \u003cem\u003eRed Again\u003c\/em\u003e begins after Sophocles’s Antigone dies. She lands in Buddhist bardo, contemplating the history of human violence.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e“Chiori Miyagawa adamantly refuses to provide those signposts that more comforting dramatists leave to reassure audiences. The force of her work lies in its jarring historical and cultural discontinuities, its mixture of brutality and beauty, its disorienting verbal and visual impact.”\u003c\/em\u003e—Martin Harries, New York University\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47603335954668,"sku":"9780857420206","price":47.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780857420206-thousand-years-waiting-and-other-plays.jpg?v=1778060091"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.co.nz\/collections\/series-in-performance.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}