Thérèse Raquin - (Oberon Classics) by Emile Zola (Paperback)

About the Book

This radical new musical adaptation is written for a company of twelve actor-musicians.

Book Synopsis

'A story of paralysing passion'

1860s Paris. In a small dusty haberdasher's shop near the Seine in the dank, narrow Passage du Pont Neuf, the young and beautiful Thérèse Raquin is trapped into a loveless marriage to her sickly cousin, Camille.

While her husband is out all day working, Thérèse spends her days confined behind the counter of a small shop and - every Thursday evening - watching her domineering aunt, Madame Raquin, play dominoes with an eclectic group of ne'er-do-wells.

Until the Thursday evening that her husband Camille brings an old friend to the party - the alluring Laurent - and she embarks on an illicit affair that leads Thérèse to abandon all her inhibitions and loyalties as their brutal and overwhelming passion overturns both their lives and has results that nobody could have foreseen...

In keeping with the innovative and challenging nature of the original work, this radical new musical adaptation features a company of twelve actor musicians playing the main roles of Thérèse, Laurent, Camille and Madame Raquin, as well as their Thursday night domino playing companions and a watchful and distrustful Chorus.

Review Quotes

"[This] adaptation is very well-constructed - The movement Sheppard incorporates complements the score and the plot..." --The Arts Desk

"This radical adaptation of Zola's dark and shocking masterpiece is brimming with derailed passion, haunting criminality and withering comedy." --Four stars - Everything Theatre

"Uncompromisingly dark" --The Stage

"With stylish book, lyrics and direction by Nona Sheppard." --Evening Standard

"The sense that it's at once a moral thriller and a kind of animal experiment comes through powerfully in Nona Sheppard's astute non-naturalistic reworking." --Independent

"Zola would approve." --Telegraph

"A talented celebration of the classic novel's sharply provocative spirit.." --Younger Theatre

"Shepphard's lyrics are some of the most intelligent lyrics ever to grace a musical theatre stage." --Public Reviews

About the Author

Nona Shepphard (Book, Lyrics and Direction) began her theatrical career as an actor at the Liverpool Playhouse, as a director at the Nuffield Theatre Southampton, and wrote her first play for the Chester Gateway Theatre. Since then, she has worked freelance as a writer and director for many companies both in the UK and abroad, with over a hundred and fifty productions and forty commissioned plays to her credit. Nona is Associate Director of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Creative Director of RADA Enterprises, and International Consultant at the Lir Academy in Dublin. This year, she has created two new pieces of work - You in Mid Air at Circus Space and Dreams and Cigarettes at the Alpbach Forum in Austria - and directed Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, Arabian Nights, Scenes from the Big Picture and High Society in London and Dublin.