Jump to:
Brian Arundel |
John Dufresne |
Denis Emorine |
Michael Nash
Plays
Brian Arundel
SAM, SARA, ETC. A play in two acts by Brian Arundel
Červená Barva Press, 2021-
A native of Washington, D.C., Brian Arundel received an MA in English from Virginia Tech and an MFA in creative writing from Louisiana State University. His short stories and essays have appeared in publications that include Salon, Mid-American Review, Bryant Literary Review, Under the Sun, The Satirist and Buddhadharma, as well as the anthologies The Practice of Creative Writing, Best of Brevity and Contemporary Creative Nonfiction, among other publications. An avid trail runner, Brian works in the nonprofit sector in southern Maine, where he lives with his wife, Manuela.
Emotionally devastated after his wife leaves him, Sam returns home, where his fisherman father has entered the family in a reality television contest. As filming ensues, the lines blur between authentic and constructed realities. Sam seeks healing while his family, and in particular his relationship with his father, descends into chaos, confrontation, and unexpected product endorsements. At turns hilarious, emotional, and philosophical, Sam, Sara, Etc. questions the meaning of identity, our roles in life, and what we might hear when everything is silent.
$18.00 | ISBN: 978-1-950063-43-7 | 138 Pages
John Dufresne
Trailerville by John Dufresne
Červená Barva Press, 2015-
John Dufresne is the author of two short story collections, The Way That Water Enters Stone and Johnny Too Bad, and the novels Louisiana Power & Light, Love Warps the Mind a Little, both New York Times Notable Books of the Year, Deep in the Shade of Paradise, and Requiem, Mass. His books on writing, The Lie That Tells a Truth and Is Life Like This? are used in many university writing programs. He’s the editor of the anthology Blue Christmas. His short stories have twice been named Best American Mystery Stories, in 2007 and 2010. He's a professor at Florida International University in Miami. He is a 2013 Guggenheim Fellow in Fiction. His latest novel is No Regrets, Coyote. A sequel, I Don't Like Where This Is Going will be published in April 2016.
It's Labor Day weekend at the Trailerville Mobile Home Park in Ouachita Parish, Louisiana. Merdelle Harris's husband of forty-one years is rapidly deteriorating with Alzheimer's. She is determined to care for him, to save him if she can. In saving Bobby she's saving her own life, she believes. There are days he doesn't know her, doesn't know himself. Arlis Bryant lives in the trailer next door with his daughter, her three kids, and her beer-drinking, hot-tempered boyfriend. It's awful crowded in there, and the boyfriend thinks someone needs to go. Arlis has fallen for Merdelle, and his attentions are both a comfort and a torment to her. She has to choose between the man who loved her once and the man who loves her now, between the past and the future.
Trailerville, the first play by novelist John Dufresne, is all about love, in all its flavors: first love, unrequited love, unbridled passion, doomed young love, the love of parents for an adult child they don't really understand, the love that grows over time in a marriage, love that is blind to the beloved's faults (even if no one else is), and ultimately, what it means to love yourself. This may sound like a recipe for heartwarming romantic comedy, so let me note that one of Dufresne's strengths as a novelist is his ability to undercut sentimentality with black humor; that talent is in evidence here as well. But Trailerville is also a very sad play, because it acknowledges that love is messy and complicated and often hurts as much as—or more than—it heals.
—Loren Noveck, nytheatre.comTrailerville delivers big laughs and a bittersweet glow.
$15.00 | ISBN: 978-0-9966894-2-7 | 112 Pages | In Stock
—Flavorpill
Denis Emorine
Passions (monodrama) by Denis Emorine
Translated from the French by Brian Cole
Červená Barva Press, 2010-
Denis Emorine is the author of short stories, essays, poetry, and theater. He was born in 1956 in Paris and studied literature at the Sorbonne (University of Paris). His theatrical output has been staged in France and Russia. He has a great interest for Eastern Europe. In 2004, he won first prize (French) for his poetry at the Féile Filiochta International competition. His poetry has been published in Pphoo (India), Blue Beat Jacket (Japan), Snow Monkey, Cokefishing, Be Which Magazine, Poesia, (USA). His texts have been published in numerous e-zines including Cipher Journal, Mad Hatter's Review, Milk, The Salt River Review, Istanbul Literary Review, and WHL Review. His last publication was a play called, "On The Platform," (Červená Barva Press).
Salt for the Dead: 'Passions' by Denis Emorine
article by Michael T. SteffenSometimes while watching or reading drama we're struck by an insight, however subjective, that the theatre the author is presenting to us is the theatre of our own mind. The notion was impressed convincingly upon me once as I read 'Othello' and realized that Iago was not an actor of acts, but a protagonist, in the true sense of the word, of the tragic hero's passions. That is, Iago is the powerful agent of Doubt within Othello's own psyche.
It's interesting that Denis Emorine's one-act monodrama 'Passions' (released earlier this year by Cervená Barva Press) so deftly evokes this sense of isolated inner psychology, though unusually the drama of 'Passions' takes place in the wake of a personal crisis or tragedy, and the tables are turned. The protagonist, Frank, now has nothing to say. He lies on a bed motionless and speechless throughout the short play. Frederick, we gather from his bitter and plaintive monologue, has been the victim of a conspiracy (just what we are not told specifically) which Frank and another referred to as George have played out on him.
This whole displacement of focus from the acts that build to a climax, to the worded invective after, makes a good point in its demonstration of the destructive senseless gestures of regret and spite. We sense throughout the first half of the act that Frederick's wounded pride is fruitless. He can't even evoke the events of Frank and George's treachery, and we suspect moreover, because of this lack of details, that Frederick in fact has no case whatsoever, that he is suffering from delusions.
A further and more poignant point made by 'Passions' comes to our awareness when the insularity of the drama is disrupted toward the end of the play by the sound of footsteps rushing to the door outside the room. Here Frederick must realize that he has only deepened his own dilemma by elaborating his grief against his companion. Threatened by the arrival of a soldier, Frederick's roaring indignation is deflated. He is again frightened and pleading for Frank to help him. At this moment Frank's unresponsiveness grows haunted and meaningful.
Emorine's vision operates in terms of shadows and impulses, at the vanities of the essential soul, revealing his subjects unflinchingly at precisely their weakest, at the waste of their own worst powers. In its modest format of a chapbook, 'Passions' lurks with dark energy under the surface and filter of our all too frail human confidence.
$7.00 | 16 Pages | In Stock
On The Platform
A play by Denis Emorine
Translated by Brian Cole, Červená Barva Press, 2008-
Cover Art: L' Echo oculaire by Farah Willem Dahri
On the Platform, by Denis Emorine, takes us to a crowded platform where impatient travelers wait for a train from Paris. We are introduced to a character named Laure. She is waiting for her fiancé Julien to arrive. Is it chance or fate that Laure meets a man named Marek? What transpires is an encounter we may all one day face. How extraordinary that in this crowded landscape, Laure realizes her destiny and his are intertwined.
Denis Emorine perfectly captures the torment of Marek and the innocence of Laure, imparting to us a vivid picture of his tortured soul and her radiant spirit. But, as the whims of Fate are unavoidable, Laure's life takes a profound turn…
$14.00 | ISBN: 978-0-615-25983-3 | 42 Pages
-Gloria Mindock, Červená Barva PressOrder at Lulu.com: http://www.lulu.com/content/4554124
Michael Nash
They're Dropping Bombs Not Ham Sandwiches
A play by Michael Nash
Červená Barva Press, 2009-
Michael Nash, originally from Hampshire, has written several works for the stage including ‘Public Heroes Private Friends,’ and ‘Signs of Fire,’ a musical about the last year in the life of Van Gogh. Nash has been employed as a writer, a teacher of Drama and English, a publisher, and all around artist. His interests include cooking, computing, and travel, especially to Turkey and Istanbul, where Nash received a degree from Istanbul University. Involved in over twenty stage productions, onstage and off, Nash has been an active participant appearing in both amateur and professional productions including ‘Under Milkwood,’ ‘A Man for All Seasons,’ and ‘The Pajama Game.’ ‘They’re Dropping Bombs Not Ham Sandwiches’ takes place in a hospital corridor and is a dialogue between a WWII veteran and a young man embroiled in the troubles of Northern Ireland. This is Nash’s tenth completed work for the stage. Michael Nash currently resides in Middlesbrough.
They’re Dropping Bombs Not Ham Sandwiches, set not so very long ago, between a World War II veteran and a youth caught up in the troubles of Northern Ireland. The play takes place in a hospital corridor and the story illustrates the Second World War through flashbacks.
It is a heart-rending awareness of World War II as seen through the eyes of an elderly hospital patient in 1989. His recollections are shared with a youth who is, as the play eventually reveals, a victim of a terrorist bomb attack in Northern Ireland. Scenes from the war years are illustrated by poetry, dialogue, and action in fantasy sequences, and enacted by the two central characters and three of the hospital staff.
$14.00 | ISBN: 978-0-578-00416-7 | 90 Pages | In Stock
Home | Červená Barva Press Books | Poetry Chapbooks | Poetry Books | Anthologies | Fiction | Flash Fiction | Literary Journals | Non-fiction | Plays | Memoirs | Audio CD's
