Background
Sinden, Donald Alfred was born on October 9, 1923 in Plymouth, England. Son of Alfred Edward and Mabel Agnes (Fuller) Sinden.
( Uncle Vania is Chekhov's best loved and perhaps his bes...)
Uncle Vania is Chekhov's best loved and perhaps his best composed play, yet this is the first book to be solely devoted to it in any language. Donald Rayfield brings his twenty years of research and writing and a century of others' critical studies to focus on Chekhov's art. He offers a close reading and interpretation of the play, paying special attention to the way in which it evolved from its prototype, the rarely performed comedy The Wood Demon. This study of Chekhov's emergence as a dramatist of genius will be invaluable to students of drama, for here, for the first time, we can watch as a playwright turns failure into success and thus learn technical secrets of his art.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1853994057/?tag=2022091-20
(Of the five major Shakespearean tragedies-Hamlet, Macbeth...)
Of the five major Shakespearean tragedies-Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, and Othello-King Lear is perhaps the most challenging. Issues of rulership, family and blood, are overlaid with bastardy, loyalty, lust, and deceit. Add to this the apparently gratuitous on-stage blinding of Gloucester, the deaths of Cordelia, Lear, Gloucester, and Kent, and one might be inclined to agree with Samuel Johnson that "The good suffer more than the evil, that love and suffering, in this play, are almost interchangeable terms and the driving force of the action is derived from the power of the evil to inflict mental agony upon the good" (quoted in Kermode, 505). However, one would be mistaken to accept wholeheartedly the happy endings of the eighteenth and nineteenth century revisionists. While the pleasant ending would certainly ease the sensibilities of the audience, it would omit the Aristotlean concepts of hamartia and the purgation of fear and pity attendant upon actually witnessing Shakespeare's King Lear, the necessary catharsis, a possible scapegoat for our own emotions. Of course, the ending is to some extent unpleasant and even shocking; however, one can argue that the ending is organic to the play; the ending IS, to a great extent, the play.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1481752960/?tag=2022091-20
(As an instructor of English 102, First-Year Composition, ...)
As an instructor of English 102, First-Year Composition, for more than seventy-five times, I have read and taught Hamlet repeatedly. I have come to know the play extensively and, as a result, when we read the play aloud in class I have to stop the students repeatedly to explain various arcane references that are not explained in any single version of the play. For several years I have threatened to do my own complete version of Hamlet; finally, I have. The result is The Complete Hamlet: An Annotated Edition of the Shakespeare Play. It has taken me years of study and application. My hope is that the play will, thus, be more accessible to the general reader.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1468552171/?tag=2022091-20
Sinden, Donald Alfred was born on October 9, 1923 in Plymouth, England. Son of Alfred Edward and Mabel Agnes (Fuller) Sinden.
( Uncle Vania is Chekhov's best loved and perhaps his bes...)
(Of the five major Shakespearean tragedies-Hamlet, Macbeth...)
(As an instructor of English 102, First-Year Composition, ...)
First appeared on stage in 1942, leading roles in productions including There's a Girl in My Soup, 1966, The Relapse, 1967, Twelfth Night, 1969, London Assurance, 1970, An Enemy of the People, 1975, King Lear, 1976, Much Ado About Nothing, 1976, Othello, 1979, Present Laughter, 1980, Uncle Vanya, 1982, School for Scandal, 1983, The Scarlet Pimpernel, 1985, Major Barbara, 1988, Oscar Wilde, 1990, She Stoops to Conquer, 1992, Hamlet, 1994, That Good Night, 1996, Ariadne Auf Naxos, 1997, Quartet, 1999. Appeared in 28 films including The Cruel Sea, Doctor in the House.
Member Leicestershire Education Arts Committee, London Academy Music and Dramatic Arts, Federation Playgoers Societies (president), Royal Theatrical Fund (president), London Appreciation Society (vice president), Garrick Club (trustee), Beefsteak Club, Melbourne Cricket Club.
Married Diana Mahony, May 3, 1948. Children: Jeremy, Marc.