TIMBERLAKE WERTENBAKER
| Nationality: | British |
| Literary Agent: *: | |
| Email: | n/a |
| Website: | n/a |
* If shown, click on the literary agent's name for full contact details and links to all the Playwrights they represent.
Plays by Timberlake Wertenbaker
Abel's Sister |
| 1st Produced: | 1984 | |||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: based on material by Yolande Bourcier | ||||
Synopsis: disabled character damaged in womb whereas her twin brother was not shows the theme of families stifling their members | ||||
After Darwin |
| 1st Produced: | 1998 | |||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | Faber & Faber, London | 1998 | ||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | 5 | Female | 1 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: It's 1831 and the naturalist Charles Darwin is to travel with Robert FitzRoy into uncharted waters off the coast of South America aboard The Beagle. So far, so factual. But for Millie, Ian and Tom, getting to grips with a 1998 stage version of events includes uncovering the polarities both in and between their own lives. The exploration of nineteenth-century philosophical tensions, with the staunch solidity of FitzRoy's Christian ideals sparring with Darwin's slowly dawning radical vision, provokes unsuspected emotions in the present-day director and actors. | ||||
Arden City |
| 1st Produced: | 2008 | |||
| Company: | New Connections | |||
| 1st Published: | in New Connections 2008, Faber & Faber, London | 2008 | ||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | - | Youth Audience | Parts: | Male | 12 | Female | 4 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: Rosie and Sally are two cousins who escape from home after difficulties with Sallys father. They find their way to an allotment where Rosie believes she might find her aunt. To be safer, Rosie dresses as a boy. Orlando also has to flee because his brother Oliver wants him killed. He finds his way to the allotment with Adam, his younger friend. In the allotment, Rosie, Sally, Orlando and others find themselves and each other. Arden City is a modern retelling of As You Like It. It is a story about love, identity and freedom. | ||||
Ash Girl, The |
| 1st Produced: | 2000 | |||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | Faber & Faber, London | 2001 | ||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: When an invitation to The Ball arrives at the Ash girl's house, from Prince Amir, she can't bring herself to believe that she, like her sisters, can go. With her mother dead and her father away, she must learn to fight the monsters that have slithered and insinuated their way into her heart and mind. In this wondrous drama Timberlake Wertenbaker explores the beauty and terror inherent in growing up. | ||||
Break Of Day, The |
| 1st Produced: | 1995 | |||
| Company: | ||||
| 1st Published: | Faber & Faber, London | 1995 | ||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | 12 | Female | 7 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: lyrics Jeremy Sams | ||||
Synopsis: Tess, Nina and April are old friends reunited one hot summer weekend to celebrate Tess's fortieth birthday. With their partners in tow, a feeling of dissatisfaction and unease seizes the group. Is it too late to have children? Were they wrong to focus so much on work'? The second act finds Tess and Robert resorting to the fertility industry to conceive, while Nina and Hugh become embroiled in the corrupt bureaucracy of an East European country as they try to adopt a baby. | ||||
Breaking Through |
| 1st Produced: | London | 1980 | ||
| Company: | Women's Theatre Group | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: music by Stephanie Nunn | ||||
Synopsis: Two female beings from an alternative universe come to try and save the earth, in particular the London underground, from nuclear disaster. | ||||
Case to Answer |
| 1st Produced: | Soho Poly, London | 1980 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||
| Genre: | - | Comedy | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: aka Happy Ending | ||||
Synopsis: An English architect puts her Greek Marxist husband through a political trial of his own devising. | ||||
Cinderella The Ash Girl |
| 1st Produced: | 2000 | |||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | 6 | Female | 10 |
| Parts Other: | 1g 1b | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: creates a modern tale about self-belief from the traditional story | ||||
Come Tu Mi Vuoi |
| 1st Produced: | - | - | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||
| Genre: | Translations | - | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: Original Playwright - Luigi Pirandello | ||||
Synopsis: - | ||||
Credible Witness |
| 1st Produced: | 2001 | |||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | Faber & Faber, London | 2001 | ||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | 8 | Female | 3 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: A young man flees to a distant land and vanishes. His mother follows, certain she will find him, but in this unfamiliar place all certainties seem to crumble. In this story of love and loss, Wertenbaker explores passions simmering in contemporary Britain: the longing for identity, the despair of fragmentation and the fragile hopes of lives redefined. | ||||
Diameira |
| 1st Produced: | - | - | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | in Wertenbaker Plays 2, Faber & Faber, London | 2002 | ||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: - | ||||
Dispute, La |
| 1st Produced: | - | - | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | Samuel French, London | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | - | One Act | Parts: | Male | 6 | Female | 4 |
| Parts Other: | extras | |||
Notes: Original Playwright - Marivaux | ||||
Synopsis: | ||||
False Admissions |
| 1st Produced: | London | 1983 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | Samuel French, London | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | - | Adaptation | Parts: | Male | 5 | Female | 3 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: Original Playwright - Marivaux | ||||
Synopsis: satire on the manners of the pre-Revolutionary French bourgeoisie | ||||
Filumena |
| 1st Produced: | Piccadilly, London | 1998 | ||
| Company: | Peter Hall Company | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||
| Genre: | - | Translation | Parts: | Male | 6 | Female | 5 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: Original Playwright - Eduardo de Filippo | ||||
Synopsis: after 25 years marriage Filumena is to be thrown over for a younger woman, pretence of death cures all | ||||
Galileo's Daughter |
| 1st Produced: | 2004 | |||
| Company: | Peter Hall Company | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | 6 | Female | 5 |
| Parts Other: | extras | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: 15/990 | ||||
Grace of Mary Traverse, The |
| 1st Produced: | 1985 | |||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | Faber & Faber, London | 1985 | ||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | 5 | Female | 3 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: daughter of rich merchant explores rakish life of eighteenth century, male dominated London, only to return diseased with her daughter | ||||
Happy Ending |
| 1st Produced: | Central Casting, Ithaca, New York | - | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||
| Genre: | - | Comedy | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: aka Case To Answer | ||||
Synopsis: An English architect puts her Greek Marxist husband through a political trial of his own devising. | ||||
Hecuba |
| 1st Produced: | - | - | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||
| Genre: | Translations | - | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: Original Playwright - Euripides | ||||
Synopsis: - | ||||
Home Leave |
| 1st Produced: | Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich, Surrey | 1982 | ||
| Company: | Wolsey TIE | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | 1 | Female | 3 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: VE day for a group who have spent the war in an aircraft factory in East Anglia | ||||
Inside Out |
| 1st Produced: | Stoke-on-Trent | 1982 | ||
| Company: | R.A.T. Theatre Tour | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: Based on the story of the 9th century Japanese poetess Ono Komachi. | ||||
Jenufa |
| 1st Produced: | 2007 | |||
| Company: | Natural Perspective | |||
| 1st Published: | Faber & Faber, London | 2007 | ||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | - | Adaptation | Parts: | Male | 6 | Female | 7 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: Adaptation by Timberlake Wertenbaker from "Her Stepdaughter' by Gabriela Preissova. Literal translation by David Short | ||||
Synopsis: Gabriela Preissovă was just 28 when her drama of love, jealousy and possession thrilled and scandalised Prague audiences in 1890. Despite becoming familiar as the basis of Janácek's opera Jenufa, Preissová's play Her Stepdaughter has not been performed in Britain until no~ in this new adaptation by Timberlake Wertenbaker, directed by Irma Brown. It's a stark, cruel tale that ought to seethe with frustration and desire; so how have Wertenbaker and Brown contrived to make it so slow and sludgy? Inspired by real-life events, the story is set in a claustrophobic Moravian village. Two halfbrothers, Steva and Latsa, are at loggerheads over the ownership of their dead mother's mill, left to the feckless, drunken Steva by his equally irresponsible father. Their need for possession extends also to Jenufa, their beautiful cousin, who is the stepdaughter of the socially respected widow Kostelnichka. Between them, the three people who claim to love Jenufa destroy her. Latsa slashes her face with a knife and permanently mars her beauty; Steva and Kostelnichka attack her even more horribly, the former by impregnating and abandoning her and the latter by murdering her baby. - Sam Marlowe, The Times | ||||
Leocadia |
| 1st Produced: | - | - | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | in "Five Plays, Anouilh", Methuen, London | 1987 | ||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | - | Adaptation | Parts: | Male | 8 | Female | 3 |
| Parts Other: | extras | |||
Notes: Original Playwright - Jean Anouilh, broadcast 1985 | ||||
Synopsis: opera singer dies after three blissful days of love with Prince Albert who has mourned her ever since | ||||
Love Of The Nightingale, The |
| 1st Produced: | 1988 | |||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | Faber & Faber, London | 1989 | ||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | 12 | Female | 8 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: treatment of the Philomele myth where the sisters wreak their revenge in true tragic style | ||||
Mephisto |
| 1st Produced: | London | 1986 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||
| Genre: | - | Adaptation | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: Original Playwright - Ariane Mnouchkine, based on novel by Klaus Mann | ||||
Synopsis: | ||||
New Anatomies |
| 1st Produced: | 1981 | |||
| Company: | Women's Theatre Group | |||
| 1st Published: | in "Plays Introduction", Faber & Faber, London | 1984 | ||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | - | Female | 5 |
| Parts Other: | 1 musician | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: portrayal of eccentric woman explorer ( Isabelle Eberhardt) at turn of 20th century who visits Algeria but is hounded by the French Authorities both there and in Paris | ||||
Oedipus at Colonus |
| 1st Produced: | 1992 | |||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | in Oedipus Plays, Faber & Faber, London | 1998 | ||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | - | Translation | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: From Sophocles | ||||
Synopsis: - | ||||
Oedipus Tyrannos |
| 1st Produced: | 1992 | |||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | in Oedipus Plays, Faber & Faber, London | 1999 | ||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | - | Translation | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: From Sophocles | ||||
Synopsis: - | ||||
Our Countr's Good |
| 1st Produced: | 1988 | |||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | 1988 | |||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | - | Adaptation | Parts: | Male | 17 | Female | 5 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: from The Playmaker by Thomas Keneally | ||||
Synopsis: Based on true story of convicts rehearsing a play. | ||||
Pelleas and Melisande |
| 1st Produced: | London | 1989 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||
| Genre: | - | Adaptation | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: Original Playwright - Maurice Maeterlinck | ||||
Synopsis: | ||||
Second Sentence |
| 1st Produced: | Brighton Actor's Workshop | 1980 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: When a young woman comes out of prison, she finds herself sentenced again by her family. | ||||
Successful Strategies |
| 1st Produced: | London | 1983 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | Samuel French, London | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | - | Adaptation | Parts: | Male | 5 | Female | 3 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: Original Playwright - Marivaux | ||||
Synopsis: Period 1733, a rich, rose-decked Comtesse, turning infidelity into a style, whimsically abandons her lover, he seeks revenge | ||||
Thebans, The |
| 1st Produced: | 1991 | |||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | Faber & Faber, London | 1992 | ||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | - | Translation | Parts: | Male | 9 | Female | 15 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: Original Playwright - Sophocles (from Antigone, Oedipus at Kolonus and Oedipus Tyrannos) | ||||
Synopsis: thrillers of ideas, moral and political battlefields | ||||
Third, The |
| 1st Produced: | Spetse Festival | 1977 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but | |||