Seven Classic Plays cover art

Seven Classic Plays

 Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

Try for £0.00
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Seven Classic Plays

By: William Shakespeare, Henrik Ibsen, Anton Chekhov, Alexandre Dumas, more
Narrated by: full cast
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £16.99

Buy Now for £16.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

 Now, for the first time in audio, Blackstone presents seven great plays in one volume: Euripides' Medea, Shakespeare's The Tempest, Moliere's The Imaginary Invalid, Dumas' Camille, Ibsen's An Enemy of the People, Shaw's Arms and the Man, and Chekhov's Uncle Vanya. These productions illustrate the development of European drama from ancient times to the threshold of the modern theater. A superb repertory company has been assembled for these recordings, all under the direction of veteran producer Yuri Rasovsky, who has won both the Audie Award for book production and the George Foster Peabody Award for broadcasting.

These are not mere readings. Rather, they are full performances using all the resources of audio to full advantage. Just as stage plays are "opened up" when adapted to film, so these selections create greater intimacy. "Staginess" is avoided, lively theatrics enhanced, while the substance of the works remains intact. For instance, in Arms and the Man, audio makes possible the judicious integration of the author's witty scene settings, written for the published version of the play, with the play itself. This is the play that established Shaw's reputation as one of the greatest wits of the London drama scene.

Music accounts for another noteworthy aspect of these productions. The Imaginary Invalid employs the score that Marc-Antoine Charpentier composed for Moliere's own premiere. It is conducted by Steven Ovitsky, artistic director of the Milwaukee Symphony.

The Tempest, composed by Shakespeare as a multi-sensory theater experience, features music on Elizabethan instruments still extant from Shakespeare's own production, resulting in lyrical textual passages, overflowing with exotic images, tantalizing sounds, and a palpable lushness.

(P)2002 Blackstone Audiobooks Classics Shakespeare Witty
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

 The Guy de Maupassant BBC Radio Drama Collection cover art
Goethe: A BBC Radio Drama Collection cover art
Anton Chekhov: 6 Full-Cast BBC Radio Productions cover art
The James Joyce BBC Radio Collection cover art
Sophocles’ Greek Tragedies: A BBC Radio Drama Collection cover art
In Search of Lost Time cover art
W.M. Thackeray: A BBC Radio Drama Collection cover art

Critic reviews

"Yuri Rasovsky, who wrote and produced this superior experience, must be a genius." ( AudioFile)

What listeners say about Seven Classic Plays

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    18
  • 4 Stars
    14
  • 3 Stars
    13
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    2
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    9
  • 4 Stars
    7
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    11
  • 4 Stars
    7
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Audible.co.uk reviews

Amazon reviews
Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars
Profile Image for Highlight

Enjoyable Old Fashioned Theatre

Made a nice change to listen to 8 hours of pure old fashioned magic from past centuries when sex & vampires were not thrown down your throat as the latest offer for the next 30 years.

Report this

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful