Book description
David Greig: Plays 1 brings together four key plays by the
playwright described by the Daily Telegraph as 'one of the most
interesting and adventurous British dramatists of his generation'. In
Outlying Island two young Cambridge ornithologists are sent to a
remote island. Together with its authoritarian leaseholder and his
niece they observe an innocence that is about to be destroyed forever.
San Diego offers a strange and occasionally nightmarish journey into
the heart of the contemporary American dream, weaving together stories
of illegal immigrants, of film stars and whores, and even of the
playwright himself. Pyrenees follows a man found lying in the snow in
the foothills as he tries to piece together his identity. In The
American Pilot a crash-landing in a remote valley in a distant country
raises questions about how the world sees America and how America sees
the world. The collection also includes a trilogy of short plays,
Being Norwegian, Kyoto and Brewers Fayre, published here for the first
time. Outlying Island 'I can't recommend it highly enough . . . A
rich, charged play, veering between the comic and the poetic as
innocence gives way to experience.' Telegraph San Diego 'A surreal and
intriguing piece of theatre . . . dazzling . . . Home and awake from
the mythical dream that is San Diego, the name David Greig remains
imprinted on our minds.' Independent Pyrenees 'All the wit and
intelligence of previous works, probing away at concerns that are both
contemporary and timeless...A classy, rewarding, engaging drama,
Greig's best to date.' The Times The American Pilot 'One of the most
intellectually stimulating dramatists around. A richly provocative new
play.' Guardian
David Greig was born in Edinburgh. His plays include Europe, The
Architect, The Speculator, The Cosmonaut's Last Message to the Woman He
Once Loved in the Former Soviet Union, Outlying Islands, San Diego,
Pyrenees, The American Pilot, Yellow Moon: The Ballad of Leila and Lee ,
Damascus, Midsummer [a play with songs] and Dunsinane. In 1990 he
co-founded Suspect Culture to produce collaborative, experimental
theatre work. His translation of Caligula was presented at the Donmar
Warehouse in an award-winning production in 2003, and his version of
Euripides' The Bacchae was seen at the Edinburgh International Festival
and the Lyric Hammersmith in 2007.
