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The Retreat from Moscow - Acting Edition
 
 
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The Retreat from Moscow - Acting Edition [Paperback]

William Nicholson (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

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Book Description

January 1, 2005
How well do we know the people we marry? Is it wrong to decide it’s time to be honest? Is love enough to save a family? In The Retreat from Moscow, William Nicholson, the celebrated author of Shadowlands, tells the powerful story of a husband who decides to be truthful in his marriage, and of the wife and son whose lives will never be the same again.

Edward and Alice have been married for thirty-three years. He is a teacher at a boys school, perfectly at home with his daily crossword and lately engrossed in reading about Napoleon’s costly invasion of Moscow. She is an observant Catholic, exacting and opinionated, and has been collecting poems about lost love for a new anthology. Jamie, their diffident thirty-two year old son, is visiting for the weekend when Edward announces he has met another woman. With the coiled intensity of Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing and the embracing empathy of Edward Albee’s best family dramas, The Retreat from Moscow shines a breathtakingly natural light on the fallout of a shattered marriage.
--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

“A finely perceptive, eloquently tender and exquisite new play.” —John Simon, New York

“Riveting. . . . Subtle and powerful, [with] marvelous emotional complexity.” —John Lahr, The New Yorker

“A tense family drama. . . . Spare, emotionally brutal.” —Time Out New York

“A truly devastating piece of theater.” —New York Daily News

“The best new play in twenty years. . . . This perfectly written masterwork shimmers with delicacy and precision.” —The Journal News
--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From the Inside Flap

How well do we know the people we marry? Is it wrong to decide it’s time to be honest? Is love enough to save a family? In The Retreat from Moscow, William Nicholson, the celebrated author of Shadowlands, tells the powerful story of a husband who decides to be truthful in his marriage, and of the wife and son whose lives will never be the same again.

Edward and Alice have been married for thirty-three years. He is a teacher at a boys school, perfectly at home with his daily crossword and lately engrossed in reading about Napoleon’s costly invasion of Moscow. She is an observant Catholic, exacting and opinionated, and has been collecting poems about lost love for a new anthology. Jamie, their diffident thirty-two year old son, is visiting for the weekend when Edward announces he has met another woman. With the coiled intensity of Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing and the embracing empathy of Edward Albee’s best family dramas, The Retreat from Moscow shines a breathtakingly natural light on the fallout of a shattered marriage. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 72 pages
  • Publisher: Dramatists Play Service, Inc. (January 1, 2005)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0822219883
  • ISBN-13: 978-0822219880
  • Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5 x 0.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #776,091 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

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Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Just saw it performed. Like bitter cold, October 28, 2004
By 
Bruce P. Barten (Saint Paul, MN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
There are actually two books which play an important part in this play. THE RETREAT FROM MOSCOW is a hardcover prop the husband carries around in the opening scene, reading from it whenever he wants to express anything about surviving a bitter cold catastrophe. His wife is producing an anthology of poetry which is still in notebook form, with a few loose pages lying on the floor in the living room area of the stage to be arranged in some order for the final manuscript stage. She quotes poetry that will surpass the knowledge of most people in the audience, but those of us who try to see the emotional point of it every time she starts spouting something completely different are in danger of getting lost in the multiplicity of words and insights. The third character is a 32-year-old unmarried son who drives down to see his folks the weekend before their 33rd wedding anniversary. He is surprised when his dad tells him the marriage is going to break up immediately, and nothing that anyone can do is going to change his mind about that. The son is the main go-between for his parents. In one scene, he even has his dad's new phone number but won't give it to his mom, who does not want a divorce, and when he offers to dial the phone so she can talk to her estranged husband, she has an emotional *Don't*patronize*me* response that makes her the real Napoleon in this theatrical version of The Retreat From Moscow. All of the characters get put through the wringer in quick scenes which progress steadily toward the three people getting over it. Death is a theme that hovers over the dramatic moments as a unique possibility that is finally just laughable. A few lines from "Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold were part of the poem I knew best in this play, though it did not get to the end where everything is compared to ignorant armies clashing by night. Reading the book might be better than seeing the play if you are so interested in the poems that you would like to know them all better than I ever will.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Sad but true, October 16, 2005
I found this play to be very interesting especially because this happened to a friend of mine. I think that many more people should read just because divorce is such a common occurence in our society in recent years. For those who may have experienced divorce first hand this may be just the play that you can relate to on multiple levels. I know that I could even without knowing the pain of the theme.
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