Full Description
"Theater such as Kenneth Koch cannot be simply paraphrased, and presents to the audience the classic Mennipean challenge: to ponder, to mull it over, to think."--Mac Wellman The Banquet brings together 144 plays, ten screenplays, and five operas spanning more than five decades of experimental work from a writer John Ashbery has called "simply the best we have." Witty, provocative, and playful, Kenneth Koch's work draws on poetry, musicals, improvisational comedy, satire, and other forms for their inspiration and touches on subjects ranging from the silly to the sublime. Kenneth Koch (1925--2002), known for his association with the New York School of poetry, wrote many collections of poetry, fiction, plays, and nonfiction. His books include Seasons on Earth, On the Edge, Thank You and Other Poems, The Art of Love, One Thousand Avant-Garde Plays, Hotel Lambosa, and The Collected Fiction, and several books on teaching children how to write poetry.
Koch was awarded numerous honors, including the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry, awarded by the Library of Congress in 1996, as well as awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Fulbright, Guggenheim, and Ingram-Merrill foundations. In 1996 he was inducted as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Kenneth Koch lived in New York City, where he was professor of English at Columbia University.
Contents
PLAYS
Pericles
The Merry Stones
Without Kinship
Guinevere, or The Death of the Kangaroo
George Washington Crossing the Delaware
Six Improvisational Plays
The Academic Murders
Easter
Mexico City
The Lost Feed
The Gold Standard
Coil Supreme
The Return of Yellowmay
The Revolt of the Giant Animals
The Building of Florence
Scenes from Angelica
E. Kology
The Tinguely Machine Mystery or The Love Suicides at Kaluka
The Moon Balloon
The Election
The Gold Standard
Youth
The Enchantment
Time and his Trumpet
Manet
Elfred the Dancer
Searching for Fairyland
Tawai Nakimo
Incident on the Street
The Brave Bull
The Promenade in Oaxaca
Six Tones
The Cowries
Two Tall Individuals
The End of Comedy
Cook
Four Loves
The Umbrella of Stage Directions
The Party
The Animated Room
Happiness
Searching for the Tomb of Alexander
The Tomb of Alexander
An Atmosphere of Heavy, Intense (Summer) Stillness Pervades
the World of Christineet Édouard
Mary Magdalene's Song
A Song to the Avant-Garde
The Two Bulls
Spices
Happiness Comes Back, in a Car
Agamemnon
Husserl
Angels
The Underground Army
The Mediterranean
Gospel Red Riding Noh Tanayachi
Robert Wilson Riding Hood
In China None
The Black Spanish Costume
Similar Events
Gospel Toothbrush
Permanently
The Burning Mystery of Anna
Départ Malgache
On the Edge
Smoking Hamlet
La Comtesse De Bercy Hamlet
Team Hamlet
Little Red Riding Hamlet
Hamlet Rebus
Transposed Hamlet
Aux Seins De Mandarine
Different Rooms Doctor
The Chinese Rivers
Christine, Edward, And The Cube
From The M'vett
The Arrival of Homosexuality in Greece, or the Fagabond
Watteau's Reputation
Hippopotamus Migration in Africa
Wittgenstein, or Bravo, Dr. Wittgenstein!
Tadeusz Kantor and the Duck
The Theatre at Epidauros
The Great Ball
The Boat from Mandraki
The Choice in Shanghai
Dumplings
Alexander
Olive Oyl Commandeers Popeye's Gunboat and Sails Off to Attack
Russia
After The Return of the Avant-Garde
Les Bousculades de L'Amour, Suivies de the Mexicana
The Yangtse
Athens Extended Place
Beijing Opera League
Byron in Italy
(On) A Corner (of Nothing) in Africa
The Coast of West Africa, 1782
Conceptions of Things
A Tale of Two Cities
Down and Out Near the Bay Of Naples
The Conquest of Mexico
Quetzalcoatl and The Cook
The Vanished God
The Meeting in Mexico
The Return of Odysseus
Other Return of Odysseus
The Harbor of Rhodes
Crêpe de Chine
St. Petersburg in 1793
A Love Play
Trade
Allegory of Sports
Mao Tse-Tung Comes Back to Life
Un Mélange De Styles
In The Market Economy, or Lost in Finance
The Precious Sea
Mahx Bruddahs
The Return of Brad Garks
Vuillard
Gnossos
Time and the Sea
Glory, or The Anthology
Ages
El Nacimiento de Federico García Lorca in Seville
The Composition of Louise
The Taps
The Four Atlantics
The Lost Moment
Transposition—Bell to Europe, from China
À La Banque de France
The Duke of Wellington's Nose
In the Storm of Love
Cook Comes Homes
A Mournful Geography
City Vanguard
The Stove of Peace
The End
The Death of Sir Brian Caitskill
The Red Robins
The Strangers from the Sea
A Heroine of the Greek Resistance
Edward and Christine
Popeye Among the Polar Bears
The New Diana
FILMS
Ten Films
Because
The Color Game
Mountains and Electricity
Sheep Harbor
Oval Gold
Moby Dick
L'Ecole normale
The Cemetery
The Scotty Dog
The Apple
OPERA LIBRETTOS
Bertha
A Change of Hearts
The Construction of Boston
Garibaldi En Sicile
The Banquet
