Tales from Hollywood
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€13.99
With the Austro-Hungarian dramatist Ödön von Horváth as our guide, Christopher Hampton's witty and erudite play takes us on a tour of the sun-soaked boulevards of 1940s Los Angeles. Taking in such improbable residents as Thomas and Heinrich Mann, Bertolt Brecht and the Marx Brothers amongst others, it brilliantly serves to open up a neglected chapter of American cultural history, as the wry and embittered European émigrés find themselves amidst the materialistic razzle-dazzle of Hollywood.
Tales from Hollywood premiered at the Mark Taper Forum Theatre, Los Angeles, 1982 and at the National Theatre, London, in 1983.
Christopher Hampton was born in the Azores in 1946. He wrote his first play, When Did You Last See My Mother?, at the age of eighteen. Since then, his plays have included The Philanthropist, Savages, Tales from Hollywood, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, White Chameleon, The Talking Cure, Appomattox and A German Life. Appomattox was turned into an opera by Philip Glass in 2014. He has translated plays by Ibsen, Molière, von Horváth, Chekhov and Yasmina Reza (including Art and Life x 3). He has translated seven plays by Florian Zeller, including The Father and The Son, both of which he subsequently co-wrote for the screen with Florian Zeller, winning an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Father in 2021. Musicals include Rebecca, Stephen Ward, Sunset Boulevard and The Third Man. His television work includes adaptations of The History Man, Hôtel du Lac and The Singapore Grip. His screenplays include The Honorary Consul, The Good Father, Dangerous Liaisons, Mary Reilly, Total Eclipse, The Quiet American, Atonement, Cheri, A Dangerous Method, Ali & Nino, Carrington, The Secret Agent and Imagining Argentina, the last three of which he also directed.