A story of lust, madness and destruction set in the backstreets of Paris. Based on Emile Zola's classic novel.

The beautiful but doomed heroine is trapped in a loveless marriage to her sickly cousin, Camille. Every Thursday evening she watches her domineering aunt, Madame Raquin, play dominoes... until one day her husband brings along an old friend, the alluring and athletic Laurent. As Laurent and The re se embark on an illicit affair, a turbulent passion is unleashed that drives them ultimately to violence and murder.

Helen Edmundson's sensuous adaptation of Therese Raquin premiered at the Theatre Royal, Bath, in July 2014. It was later seen on Broadway in a production starring Keira Knightley.

About the Author

Emile Zola (1840-1902) was a French writer, the most well-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism.

Helen Edmundson's first play, Flying, was presented at the National Theatre Studio in 1990. In 1992, she adapted Tolstoy's Anna Karenina for Shared Experience, for whom she also adapted The Mill on the Floss in 1994. Both won awards - the TMA and the Time Out Awards respectively - and both productions were twice revived and extensively toured.

Shared Experience also staged her original adaptation of War and Peace at the National Theatre in 1996, and toured her adaptations of Mary Webb's Gone to Earth in 2004, Euripides' Orestes in 2006, the new two-part version of War and Peace in 2008, and the original play Mary Shelley in 2012.

Her original play The Clearing was first staged at the Bush Theatre in 1993, winning the John Whiting and Time Out Awards, Mother Teresa is Dead was premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in 2002 and The Heresy of Love was premiered by the Royal Shakespeare Company in the Swan Theatre in 2012.

Her adaptation of Jamila Gavin's Coram Boy premiered at the National Theatre to critical acclaim in 2005, receiving a Time Out Award. It was subsequently revived in 2006, and produced on Broadway in 2007. She adapted Caldero n's Life is a Dream for the Donmar Warehouse in 2009, and Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons for the Bristol Old Vic in 2010, which subsequently transferred to the West End before embarking on a national tour in 2012.

Reviews

'[A] compelling, poetic and fleet adaptation... riveting'

* The Times *

'Period noir, a psychological thriller that will pin you to your seat as surely as a Hitchcock film'

* Daily Mail *

'Highly intelligent and horribly compelling'

* Independent *

'A superb piece of work... funny, charged with erotic fissure and has a spine tingling eeriness'

* WhatsOnStage *



Book Information
ISBN 9781848424111
Author Emile Zola
Format Paperback
Page Count 112
Imprint Nick Hern Books
Publisher Nick Hern Books