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Deborah Levy

DEBORAH LEVY

  (1959 - )
Nationality:    South African
email:    n/a     Website:    n/a

Literary Agent:    The Agency (London) Ltd  

Playwright, novelist and poet Deborah Levy (Fellow Royal Society of Literature) was born in 1959 in South Africa. She moved to Britain with her family and studied theatre at Dartington College of Arts. She was a Creative Arts Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge, between 1989 and 1991. She is a regular contributor of articles and reviews to newspapers and magazines including The Independent, The Guardian and the New Statesman. Formerly director and writer for MANACT Theatre Company, Cardiff, Deborah Levy's plays include Pax (1984); Heresies:Eva and Moses (1985), written for the Royal Shakespeare Company; Clam (1985); The B File (1993); and Honey Baby (1995). She is also the author of a libretto adapted from Federico Garcia Lorca's play Blood Wedding. A collection of her plays, Plays: 1 was published in 2000. She is also the author of three collections of short stories: Ophelia and the Great Idea (1989); Pillow Talk in Europe And Other Places (2004); and Black Vodka (2013). The latter was shortlisted for the International Frank O'Connor Award. An Amorous Discourse in the Suburbs of Hell, a collection of poems, was published in 1990, and she wrote the screenplay for a short film Suburban Psycho, televised by the BBC in 1998. Levy also adapted Carol Shield's novel, Unless, and Chance Acquaintances by Colette, for BBC Radio 4. Deborah Levy is also the author of seven novels: Beautiful Mutants (1989); Swallowing Geography (1993); The Unloved (1994); Diary of a Steak (1997); Billy & Girl (1999); Swimming Home (2011); and Hot Milk (2016). She has been shortlisted twice for the Booker Prize, in 2012 and 2016. Levy's autobiographical essay on writing, Things I Don't Want to Know, a response to the essay of the same title by George Orwell, was published by Notting Hill Editions in 2013 and in paperback by Penguin.

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below is a list of Deborah Levy's plays - click on a Play Title for more information

         Amorous Discourse In the Suburbs Of Hell         B File, The         Blood Wedding         Call Blue Jane         Clam         Dream Mamma         Eva And Moses         Heresies         Honey Baby         Macbeth - False Memory         Ophelia And the Great Idea         Our Lady         Pax         Pushing the Prince Into Denmark         Shiny Nylon         Walks On Water
Amorous Discourse In the Suburbs Of Hell

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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
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B File, The

Synopsis:
One woman. Five bodies. a physical exploration.

Notes:
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1st Produced:
Cardiff     1992

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Genre:
erotic Interrogation'

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  5            Other:  -

Further Reference:
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Blood Wedding

Synopsis:
a young couple from rival clans plans to marry, much to the distress of the bridegroom's mother whose husband and other son have previously been murdered through clan rivalry. as the wedding day draws nearer the tension mounts and after the bride meets and elopes with former lover Leonardo, who is also married, the bridegroom's mother is caught in a dilEmma of conscience, wondering whether she should cry for vengeance and bloodshed or protect the life of her remaining son. In a violent ambush Leonardo and the bridegroom are killed leaving the bridegroom's mother, the bride and Leonardo's wife united in their grief.

Notes:
Original Playwright - Federico Garcia Lorca

1st Produced:
London     1992

Organisations:
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1st Published:
Novello, London, 1992   

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Genre:
Libretto

Parts:
Male:  9            Female:  11            Other:  -

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Call Blue Jane

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1st Produced:
London     1992

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Clam

Clam
In Clam, a couple portray three relationships: Harry and alice, a pair of underwater picnickers, Vladimir Lenin and his wife Nadya and a sinister interrogator figure and his female 'patient'. In the surreal world of the seaside setting, we look from the distance of the shore at not only the past of a disintegrated relationship, but the fractured europe of the 1980's. .
- Sacha Voit, British theatre Guide

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1st Produced:
London     1985

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1st Published:
Contained in: "Deborah Levy Plays One" published by Methuen 2000   

Music:
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Genre:
One act

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
National Library of Scotland ref: Traverse - acc.10365/38

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Dream Mamma

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Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

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Eva And Moses

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1st Produced:
London     1987

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Heresies

Synopsis:
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1st Produced:
The Pit, London     1986

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Music:
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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
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Honey Baby

Honey Baby
presents two couples, one young, one older, playing out relationship norms and trying to negotiate new ones. Only they all ultimately 'want you to be someone else' and the lives they live with their partners are lies. Dreaming of sex and aeroplanes, the young man does not want children, yet his girlfriend does. Shouting for attention and demanding his right to be heard because he comes from 'middle england' (and therefore pertinently is a crucial voice of the voter) is ernest the stereotypical english husband. Beside him (in the stand out performance of the evening by Chloe Thorpe) is his long suffering but ultimately hystErical wife Mary who, with her skirt interminably caught in her knickers, struggles desperately for recognition. Weaving in and out of it all is the foreboding character of the sinister, many voiced, torturing CO who subjects each character to interrogation, reading their minds, memories and desires. as he rips back the layers of pretence and performance from each character, they convulse while being stripped down to the truth.
- Sacha Voit, British theatre Guide

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1st Produced:
-     2000

Organisations:
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1st Published:
Contained in: "Deborah Levy Plays One" published by Methuen Drama 2000   

Music:
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
One act

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
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Macbeth - False Memory

Macbeth - False Memory
Playwright Deborah Levy didn't want to write a contemporary adaptation of Macbeth. Instead she's opted to "explore how a story told five hundred years ago travels into the concrete, pollution and speed of the 21st century." What Levy and director Nick Philippou give us is one businessman murdering another who then haunts his killer's wife. She is gradually coached into becoming a glamorous Lady M whilst the victim's daughter seeks revenge by taunting the killer, via her father's mobile phone, with her sex life and toilet habits. Meanwhile, on film some sweet little girls run around a forest repeating "tomorrow" - and there's some fake butterflies and real homosexuals.
Philip Chapman, What's On

Notes:
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1st Produced:

Organisations:
aTheatre Company, London

1st Published:
Contained in: "Deborah Levy Plays One" published by Methuen Drama 2000   

Music:
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  2            Other:  extras, some on film

Further Reference:
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Ophelia And the Great Idea

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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Our Lady

Synopsis:
Three women, two black and one white, from different cultures and experience of life all claim to be Our Lady. They are brought to trial for heresy by the Holy Inquisition, whose represntative has been summoned from the fifteenth century - Flyer for "Our Lady" THM/322/5/17

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1st Produced:
Edinburgh Festival Theatre     01 Aug 1986

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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:
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Pax

Synopsis:
poetry and music about women and nuclear war

Notes:
PAX is a highly innovative new play. It interweaves movement, poetry, music, dialogue and visuals in an allegory of our time.

1st Produced:
Edinburgh Festival Fringe     01 Aug 1984

Organisations:
Women's Theatre Group

1st Published:

Music:
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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:
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Pushing the Prince Into Denmark

Pushing the Prince Into Denmark
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Notes:
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1st Produced:
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Organisations:
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1st Published:
Contained in: "Deborah Levy Plays One" published by Methuen Drama 2000   

Music:
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
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Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
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Shiny Nylon

Synopsis:
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Notes:
Installation By Anna Gallaccio

1st Produced:
R Victoria Dock, London     1994

Organisations:
WPT

1st Published:
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Music:
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
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Parts:
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Further Reference:
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Walks On Water

Synopsis:
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Notes:
English, R., Walks On Water; Gale, D., Slips; Gomez-Pena, G., 1992; Levy, Deborah, the B File; Macdonald, C., Storm From Paradise

1st Produced:
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Organisations:
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1st Published:

Music:
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
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Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
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