Classic Plays

A solo recording of King Lear in an American dialect.

An award winning Drama from SmartPass. Unabridged with guided description to set the scene and fill in visual moments.

Henry VIII folis a plot by the scheming Cardinal Wolsey and rejects his 20-year marriage with the tragic Katherine of Aragon. All the while he is keeping his wandering eye on the beautiful Anne Boleyn.

Paul Scofield, Siobhan McKenna and John Neville perform Twelfth Night. This is Shakespeare's comedy of gender confusion, in which a girl disguises herself as a man to be near the count she adores - only to be pursued by the woman he loves.

A magical tale of enchantment, retribution and love. Prospero, the rightful Duke of Milan, is betrayed by his brother and exiled to a desert island with his daughter Miranda. With the help of Ariel, a spirit, he uses his supernatural powers to shipwreck his brother and others on the same island. With a series of illusions, he regains his rightful place and finds a husband for his daughter.

A shipwreck separates Viola and her twin brother Sebastian. She lands in the magical and melancholy kingdom of Illyria, where nearly everybody dances some step to the music of Love.

Hamlet is one of the great classics, if not the greatest, of English drama. Set in Denmark, the play recounts how Prince Hamlet exacts revenge on his uncle Claudius, who has murdered Hamlet's father, the King, and then taken the throne and married Gertrude, Hamlet's mother.

Shakespeare's comedy is performed by a cast including Derek Godfrey, Patrick Garland, Prunella Scales and Peter Pears.

Leontes, suspecting his wife's infidelity, imprisons her and exiles her infant daughter to a faraway island. Years later, his wife, presumed dead, is returned to him as a statue.

Helen heals the king of France, and the king grants her permission to marry Bertram, the man she loves. Bertram rejects her and leaves a list of tasks that she must do to have him acknowledge their marriage. She follows him to Italy, completes all the tasks and Bertram accepts her as his wife.

King Henry IV suffers from illness, so his youngest son, Prince John, fights the rebels, while Prince Hal prepares to be king. Meanwhile, Hal's friend Falstaff causes trouble, recruits and speaks ill of Hal. Henry dies and Hal becomes King Henry V. He banishes Falstaff from court, ready to wage war on France.

Wealthy and popular, Timon of Athens helps his friends, gives many gifts and holds a feast. After ignoring his true friends' warnings, Timon runs out of money and none of his 'friends' will help him. He runs away to a cave where he curses humanity, finds gold, funds someone to destroy Athens and dies.

Magical and dreamlike in its tone, Shakespeare’s The Tempest begins with a storm of epic proportions and a shipwreck. Banished from Italy, Prospero lives on a remote island with his daughter. Using his magic, he vows to seek revenge on the injustice dealt to him by his brother, but in doing so, Shakespeare questions the difficulty of distinguishing ‘men’ from ‘monsters’, and the realities of justice.

King Cymbeline of Britain banishes his daughter Imogen's husband, who then makes a bet on Imogen's fidelity. Imogen is accused of being unfaithful, runs away and becomes a page for the Roman army as it invades Britain. In the end, Imogen clears her name, discovers her long-lost brothers and reunites with her husband while Cymbeline makes peace with Rome.

Shakespeare’s darkest psychological thriller. Three witches tell the Scottish General Macbeth that he will be king of Scotland. Encouraged by his wife, Macbeth kills the king, becomes the new king and kills more people out of paranoia. Civil war erupts to overthrow Macbeth, resulting in more death.

Whether it's friendship, beauty, love, or something more saucy, the Bard of Avon has a sonnet for every occasion. Learn what the sonnets mean and hear fun facts about the poet, witches, Elizabethan life, and the unfortunate hygiene habits of the 16th century. Despite being written 400 years ago, the sonnets speak to the eternal ups and downs of anyone in love and the struggle to fight our mortality with art. Many centuries later, we have something else in common with Elizabethans: We find kittens to be utterly adorable.

Zhizn' puritanskoj sem'i amerikanskih kolonistov menjaetsja pod natiskom vojny za nezavisimost'. Nekotorye chleny sem'i eshhe pytajutsja zhit' po obychnym normam svoego sushhestvovanija, no politika uzhe vmeshalas' i vtjanula glavnogo geroja v paradoksal'nuju situaciju. No final jetoj istorii budet samym neozhidannym.

Eto poslednee avtobiograficheskoe proizvedenie pisatelja. Proza Osipa Mandel'shtama otnositsja k vershinam russkoj izjashhnoj slovesnosti. Malen'kij chelovek v vodovorote revoljucii. Intelligent - malen'kij, robkij, bednyj pytaetsja ostanovit' letom 1917 goda samosud ozverevshej revoljucionnoj tolpy nad karmannikom. Strashno, no nikuda ne det'sja - sovest'... Etot shedevr jarkoj intellektual'noj prozy razvivaet klassicheskuju temu pushkinskogo i gogolevskogo Peterburga.

After vowing to avoid women, the king and three of his friends have to host a princess and her three ladies. The four men fall in love and decide to court the women. In the end, the women must return to their kingdom for a year after which they will marry the king and his friends, providing they remain true to them.

Vechnye problemy otcov i detej, vernosti i predatel'stva. Na scene ujutnyj, chisten'kij mir meshhanki Anny Markovny Celovan'evoj. K nej pribyli znatnye i bogatye gosti - lesopromyshlennik Antipa Zykov s synom Mihailom i sestroj Sof'ej, - chtoby sladit' pomolvku docheri Celovan'evoj Pavly s Mihailom. Celovan'eva rada - Mihail hot' i p'et, no tih, dobr i pokladist. Sochinjaet stihi, igraet na gitare. Bogat, i k tomu zhe edinstvennyj naslednik. Odnako Antipa sam polozhil glaz na Pavlu: «Idi za menjm...Jeto ja budu tebja molodo ljubit'». I...Pavla soglasna...