The Funfair by Simon Stephens

The Funfair by Simon Stephens

I kept telling myself I wanted something more out of my life, something brighter. I had all these ideas in my head. Thing is, I had to go down so low just to try to lift my life up a little bit higher.

Simon Stephens’s exciting new adaptation of the twentieth-century classic Kasimir and Karoline is a dark, political and hilarious play that sets two young lovers in the throes of a break-up against the hypnotic whirl and bright lights of a funfair.

The Funfair takes us on a ride through the loops, dips and highs of one night at a fairground, exploring a crisis of capitalism set to the soundtrack of a rock and roll love song.

The play received its world premiere at Manchester's Home Theatre on 14 May 2015 and was the theatre's first-ever production.

Its gaudy despair. . is true, disturbing and wide-reaching * Guardian *
At every turn, The Funfair subverts your liberal prejudices * Whatsonstage *
Stephens' reworking is local and immediate. It translates the story of romantic disintegration and far-right politics at the 1929 Munich Oktoberfest into a violent, hedonistic night on the lash at a seedy Mancunian fairground today. . . . it seethes with rage at the obscene inequalities of wealth and power in our society and how they drive the dispossessed to turn on one another. * The Times *
with hints of an expressionist Woyzeck, the melancholy of a Chekhov play and some of the political clout of Edward Bond's Saved. . . . The era is both now and then. * Guardian *
Simon Stephens's angry version of Odon von Horvath's 1932 Kasimir and Karoline. . . . Stephens sees utter modernity in his tale of lovers breaking up as poverty and desperation render the world around them hostile. . . . a piece of dark, glittering fragments. . . . it's gaudy despair . . . is true, disturbing and wide-reaching. * Observer *
Stephens' script is excellent, peppered with bursting one-liners. And the nightmarish atmosphere of the fair, a metaphor for a society sick at its core, is powerfully evoked. Politically engaged and artistically bold - as reliant on surreal imagery as on dialogue * Financial Times *
Simon Stephens's latest work is an unflinching, highly political portrait of life at the bottom of the heap. * Mail on Sunday *

Simon Stephens is a multi-award-winning playwright whose plays are produced across the world.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781474265843
ISBN 10	1474265847
Title	The Funfair
Author	Simon Stephens
Series	Modern Plays
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Year published	2015-05-14
Number of pages	80
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.