Poets' Walk

"Set in country villas outside of Rome in the months before Caesar's assassination, Conversations in Tusculum imagines the frustrations of fiery senators and warriors reduced to brooding in self-imposed isolation about the endangered civil freedoms of their republic... A portrait of the guilt of being merely intellectual when the world demands something more." Ben Brantley, The New York Times "Mr Nelson has charted how the chaos of the world enters in the first place: slight by slight, betrayal by betrayal, injustice by injustice, conversation by conversation." Eric Grode, The New York Sun "[CONVERSATIONS IN TUSCULUM] feels a little like Chekhov, and means to remind us of the power-hungry men currently in charge in Washington. Nelson's script, basically faithful to history, is written in a 21st-century vernacular that casts these men as Wall Street or Movie moguls on their days off. TUSCULUM is a taste well worth acquiring." Elizabeth Zimmer, Metro

Reprint of the original, first published in 1874. The Antigonos publishing house specialises in the publication of reprints of historical books. We make sure that these works are made available to the public in good condition in order to preserve their cultural heritage.

"In the play I portray a disgusting, selfish, provincial fellow who for twenty years has been reading works on art but understanding nothing about the subject--a man who brings despondency and gloom to all those near him, who is not accessible to laughter and music--and who, despite all this, is undoubtedly happy."<BR> Anton Chekhov

Subtitled "A Comedy of Trans-Atlantic Manners." An Englishman and his family live far-flung across the vast American continent. Brought together by tragedy, they find comfort in attacking their adopted country, ridiculing its crude ways and lack of standards. Humor and irony as well as the sense of loss and longing permeate this story of exiles unable to address a world that is passing by. "This dark comedy begins, quite literally, with a bang: A man sitting in the book-lined den of his Connecticut farmhouse puts a revolver to his head and, as his girlfriend, Alice, walks into the room, pulls the trigger (done with startlingly bloody effect). Next 85 of the play's 90 minutes detail a gathering of the clan as the man's adult children, among others, argue away a tension-packed night on the eve of the memorial service. Hosting this often-nasty get-together of British expatriates is Alice, the suicide's middle-aged mistress who two years prior had given up a successful publishing career in New York for a country life shared with a man she slowly realizes she never really knew...witty, acerbic banter."<BR> Greg Evans, Variety "NEW ENGLAND, played without intermission, is bold in its form: the climax comes in the first scene. The next seven scenes are an extended coda, not so much to Harry's life as to the British-American culture gap and to a world made orderly by distinctions of class and education...a work of intelligence and wit."<BR> Vincent Canby, The New York Times

Nominated for Olivier Award, Best Comedy "Behind [Nelson's] play lurks the daunting question of what we actually go to drama for. What, he asks, is its value if it doesn't modify and affect our behavior? ...Behind Mr Nelson's very good jokes [reminiscent of an American David Lodge] lies a real fear that we increasingly divorce art from life and treat culture as something devoured rather than digested." Michael Billington, The Guardian "Funny and thought provoking...leaves one hungry for me." Charles Spencer, Daily Telegraph "A delight." Paul Taylor, The Independent "A gripping evening. The humor is based on genuine insight, and while the characters talks a lot, the unspoken tensions tend to be even sharper than the spoken ones. There are some painful moments and some oddly moving ones... But comedy wins out in the end..." John Gross, Sunday Telegraph

A Culture of Confidence: Politics, Performance and the Idea of Americaby Richard NelsonA study of contemporary America's hunger for confidence and the politics of performance that shapes our institutions and our daily lives.Compelled by the ubiquitous power of mass entertainment, politics has adopted the theatrical language and the rhetoric of performance as a strategy for winning public favor. We have come to expect the politicians we elect to be performers. Now, more than at any other time in American history, we conceive the world of politics to be a world of theatre in which every political campaigner must sell us something. In this persuasive study of culture politics, Richard Nelson examines the role of confidence and doubt as the cement that holds the nation together. He explores confidence in its dual meanings-of trusting faith and of deception, guile, and illusion. His book confirms that our national identity is deeply imbued by both. One binds the populace through the need to believe in a hopeful and positive future. The other leads to national crises through disillusionment and doubt. Nelson argues that through the influence of the artist, the advertiser, and the actor, as well as from the liberal-conservative tension that exists in the dual meanings of confidence, we derive our idea of America.Richard Nelson is a professor of history at the University of Maine at Machias.

Olivier Award, Best Play "Nelson's great virtue is that he asks hard questions about the emotional priorities of people who've missed out on their childhoods, poignantly charting the outer boundaries of affection and the disparity between the human craving for love and the human ability to give it."<BR> Kate Straiton, Time Out "Upsettingly engrossing."<BR> Louise Kingsley, What's On "I have long believed Nelson to be among the greatest dramatists of his generation...there is a remarkable kind of poetry here..."<BR> Sheridan Morley, The Spectator

"A minor masterpiece...that authenticates Zoom as a grown-up dramatic medium." Five Stars Sunday Times (UK) "The question hangs in the virtual air of AND SO WE COME FORTH, Richard Nelson's wistfully stirring new Apple Family play. 'What have we done to ourselves?'" The Washington Post "Powerful." The New York Times "Richard Nelson's extraordinary, intimate saga."Variety "Couldn't be more current, more relevant, more poignant, more powerful." Northwest Herald (Illinois) "The effect is kind of a balm to the audience as we identify with the family's unease, uncertainty, and unfamiliar emotions.... The family ask[s] whether art will still be important as part of the human experience in whatever the new world there will be after this... This play is itself the answer." Gay City News "The Apple Family is back, offering much-needed comfort... By giving voice to the anxieties and angers felt by so many these days, Nelson's characters have become old friends..."Lighting and Sound America "The beauty of Nelson's Apple Family Cycle lies in the context. Like the concentric circles in Chekhov's plays, characters contemplate the past and the future."Theater Pizzazz