Новинки Майкла Фрейна

John Garrard is a successful manufacturer who is driven by a compulsion to use and consume the world and the people around him. He is briefly intensely curious about everything he comes across, particularly other people's worlds: their religious beliefs, their sexual and artistic yearnings and their feelings about him. During one climactic night amid the hectic activities of a trade fair in Germany, it looks as if he will be forced to turn his sharp eyes upon himself and come face to face at last with silence and darkness.

Benedict Cumberbatch, Greta Scacchi and Simon Russell Beale star in Michael Frayn's award-winning play about the controversial 1941 meeting between physicists Bohr and Heisenberg. Copenhagen, Autumn 1941. The two presiding geniuses of quantum physics, Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg meet for the first time since the breakout of war. Danish physicist Bohr and his wife, Margrethe, live in Nazi-occupied Denmark; their visitor, Heisenberg, is German, the two old friends, now on opposing sides have between them the ability to change the course of history. Frayn's Tony award-winning play imagines the three characters re-drafting the events…

On the sunlit Greek island of Skios, the Fred Toppler Foundation's annual lecture is to be given by Dr Norman Wilfred, the world-famous authority on the scientific organisation of science. He turns out to be surprisingly young and charming -- not at all the intimidating figure they had been expecting. The Foundation's guests are soon eating out of his hand. So, even sooner, is Nikki, the attractive and efficient organiser.

Meanwhile, in a remote villa at the other end of the island, Nikki's old school-friend Georgie waits for the notorious chancer she has rashly agreed to go on holiday with, and who has only too characteristically failed to turn up. Trapped in the villa with her, by an unfortunate chain of misadventure, is a balding old gent called Dr Norman Wilfred, who has lost his whereabouts, his luggage, his temper and increasingly all normal sense of reality -- everything he possesses apart from the flyblown text of a well-travelled lecture on the scientific organisation of science...

Heaven, reported St John in Revelation, was a cubical city 12,000 furlongs high made of 'pure gold, like unto clear glass'. That was 1,900 years ago, and Heaven as it is today has changed out of all recognition. This book is the account of a recent journey to the metropolis at the nerve-centre of the universe. The journey was undertaken not by a mystical reporter like St John, but by Howard Baker, an observer of much more modern outlook. He finds a city which offers rich opportunities for leisure and enjoyment - but one which also presents a moral and intellectual challenge. In short, a city which is highly adapted to the requirements of modest, responsible, likeable, educated men of liberal views and genuine social concern called Howard Baker.

'Lucid, intelligent, delightful, stylish, extremely funny . . . I recommend it wholeheartedly.' New York Times

'May go down in history as one of England's special contributions to the twentieth century.' Times Literary Supplement

In the quiet cul-de-sac where Keith and Stephen live the only immediate signs of the Second World War are the blackout at night and a single random bombsite. But the two boys start to suspect all is not as it seems when one day Keith announces a disconcerting discovery: the Germans have infiltrated his own family. And when the secret underground world they have dreamed up emerges from the shadows they find themselves engulfed in mysteries far deeper and more painful than they had bargained for.

'An unknown place.' This was what Michael Frayn's children called the shadowy landscape of the past from which their family had emerged. In this book he sets out to rediscover that lost land before all trace of it finally disappears beyond recall. As he tries to see it through the eyes his parents and the others who shaped his life, he comes to realise how little he ever knew or understood about them. This is above all the story of his father, the quick-witted boy from a poor and struggling family, who overcame so many disadvantages and shouldered so many burdens to make a go of his life; who found happiness, had it snatched away from him…

Тhe Tony Award—winning play that soars at the intersection of science and art, Copenhagen is an explosive re-imagining of the mysterious wartime meeting between two Nobel laureates to discuss the atomic bomb.

In 1941 the German physicist Werner Heisenberg made a clandestine trip to Copenhagen to see his Danish counterpart and friend Niels Bohr. Their work together on quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principle had revolutionized atomic physics. But now the world had changed and the two men were on opposite sides in a world war. Why Heisenberg went to Copenhagen and what he wanted to say to Bohr are questions that have vexed historians ever since. In Michael Frayn’s ambitious, fiercely intelligent, and daring new play Heisenberg and Bohr meet once again to discuss the intricacies of physics and to ponder the metaphysical—the very essence of human motivation.

Twenty years after graduation, six former students return to their college for a reunion dinner in this late 1970s riotous farce which takes on the ridiculousness of English propriety. Seeing the reunion as a chance to escape the tedium of family and working life, the group seizes the opportunity for drunken buffoonery and to reminisce about – and relive – their jaunty college days in stuffy, middle-class, white, male Oxbridge college. In classic bedroom farce form, the group gets locked into the college overnight with the much-desired head master's wife and a cabinet minister. They and their high profile guests are flung into one embarrassing situation after another as they chase in and out of multiple bedroom doors, some in their underwear, with misunderstandings and mistaken identities- all the staples of classic farce. Frayn's extraordinary repartee raises the genre to new heights of wit and subtly as the group comedically ponders their varying degrees of success and the role of predestination and free-will in their life choices.

This tale is set in the crossword and nature-notes department of an obscure national newspaper during the declining years of Fleet Street.

A young would-be art historian suddenly sees the chance of a lifetime: the opportunity to perform a great public service, and at the same time to make his professional reputation - perhaps even rather a lot of money as well...

У п'єсі описано зустріч двох визначних фізиків XX ст. — Нільса Бора та Вернера Гайзенберґа — у Копенгаґені восени 1941 р. Об'ємна Післямова й Післямова до післямови дають картину подій, пов'язаних з відкриттям атомної фізики у 1930—1940-х рр., які привели, зокрема, до створення ядерної зброї. Розкрито суперечливість поглядів безпосередніх учасників тих подій і всіх, хто займався їх дослідження. Роздуми героїв дають змогу людині будь-якого фаху відчути себе втаємниченим у пошуку розв'язання вічної дилеми вибору, вибору між людяністю і професіоналізмом, між співчуттям і амбіціями.
Для всіх, хто цікавиться питаннями моралі в науці, історією Другої світової війни, а також історією фізики XX ст.

In the quiet cul-de-sac where Keith and Stephen live the only immediate signs of the Second World War are the blackout at night and a single random bombsite. But the two boys start to suspect all is not as it seems when one day Keith announces a disconcerting discovery: the Germans have infiltrated his own family. And when the secret underground world they have dreamed up emerges from the shadows they find themselves engulfed in mysteries far deeper and more painful than they had bargained for.

Copenhagen is a play based on a real event which occurred in 1941: a meeting between the physicists Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg and explores the moral questions about scientists working on nuclear weapons. The play debuted in London and later won the Tony Award during its Broadway run.

Methuen Drama Student Editions are expertly annotated texts of a wide range of plays from the modern and classic repertoires.

Key Features:

• Chronology of the playwright's life and work.
• Synopsis of the plot.
• Introduction chapter with commentary on themes, context, characters, language, key words and phrases and play structure.
• Questions, notes and a bibliography for further reading.
• Text notes to explain unfamiliar terms in the play text.

One day, during the British run of Copenhagen, winner of the Tony Award for best play in 1999, Frayn was presented with a curious package from a London housewife that contained a few faded pages of barely legible German. These pages, apparently found concealed beneath some floorboards, seemed to cast a remarkable new light on the mystery at the heart of the play. While Frayn began to lose all sense of certainty, actor David Burke, who played Niels Bohr in the London production and had some experience with documents of this sort, followed the action with particularly close interest. After the riddle was cracked and the fog had cleared, Frayn and Burke sat down together to ponder the winding trail of the Copenhagen papers.

By turns comic and profound, The Copenhagen Papers explores the conundrum at the heart of all Michael Frayn's work--human fallibility and the eternal difficulty of knowing why we do what we do.

Лондонское предместье, начало 1940-x. Два мальчика играют в войну. Вообразив, что мать одного из них - немецкая шпионка, они начинают следить за каждым ее шагом. Однако невинная, казалось бы, детская игра неожиданно приобретает зловещий поворот... А через 60 лет эту историю - уже под другим углом зрения, с другим пониманием событий - вспоминает постаревший герой. Майкл Фрейн (р. 1933), известный английский писатель и драматург, переводчик пьес А. П. Чехова, демонстрирует в романе "Шпионы" незаурядное мастерство психологической нюансировки. Это тонкая проза, главное в которой - сложная игра восприятий; образ реальности складывается здесь…

Майкл Фрейн - современный английский писатель старшего поколения - получил известность как романист, драматург и переводчик русской классической литературы. Роман "Одержимый" - это забавный рассказ об опасных и захватывающих приключениях ученого-искусствоведа, напавшего на след неизвестной картины Брейгеля. Искушенный призраком славы, главный герой книги задумывает головокружительную махинацию с целью завладеть бесценным произведением искусства. Приключения современного афериста (в книге есть все необходимые составляющие детектива: тайна, погони, стрельба, ускользающая добыча) переплетаются с событиями жизни еретика Брейгеля, творившего под…

Martin Clay, a young would-be art historian, suddenly sees opening in front of him the chance of a lifetime: the opportunity to perform a great public service, and at the same time to make his professional reputation - perhaps even rather a lot of money as well. Thus he finds himself drawn step by step into a moral and intellectual labyrinth.

In 1941 the German physicist Werner Heisenberg made a strange trip to Copenhagen to see his Danish counterpart, Niels Bohr. They were old friends and close colleagues, and they had revolutionised atomic physics in the 1920s with their work together on quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principle. But now the world had changed, and the two men were on opposite sides in a world war. The meeting was fraught with danger and embarrassment, and ended in disaster.

Why the German physicist Heisenberg went to Copenhagen in 1942 and what he wanted to say to the Danish physicist Bohr are questions which have exercised historians of nuclear physics ever since. In Michael Frayn's new play Heisenberg meets Bohr and his wife Margrethe once again to look for the answers, and to work out, just as they had once worked out the internal functioning of the atom, how we can ever know why we do what we do.

Michael Frayn's first novel for over fifteen years is a witty and playful account of what it's like to be on the fringes of the creative process. It is written in the form of a series of letters sent by a minor English Literature academic to his old friend in Australia.

В литературу Майкл Фрейн, английский писатель, драматург и переводчик, вошел поначалу как романист. В его первом романе «Оловянные солдатики» объектом сатирического запала стали компьютеры, создающие литературные произведения. В 1966 году за «Оловянные солдатики» Фрейну была присуждена премия Сомерсета Моэма.