Thérèse Raquin (NHB Modern Plays)

By Émile Zola

A story of lust, madness and destruction set in the backstreets of Paris. Based on Emile Zola's classic novel.

The beautiful but doomed heroine is trapped in a loveless marriage to her sickly cousin, Camille. Every Thursday evening she watches her domineering aunt, Madame Raquin, play dominoes... until one day her husband brings along an old friend, the alluring and athletic Laurent. As Laurent and Thérèse embark on an illicit affair, a turbulent passion is unleashed that drives them ultimately to violence and murder.

Helen Edmundson's sensuous adaptation of Thérèse Raquin premiered at the Theatre Royal, Bath, in July 2014.

'[a] compelling, poetic and fleet adaptation... riveting' The Times

'period noir, a psychological thriller that will pin you to your seat as surely as a Hitchcock film' Daily Mail

'highly intelligent and horribly compelling' Independent

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Release date: Sep 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781780014937

Émile Zola

Émile Zola was a French writer who is recognized as an exemplar of literary naturalism and for his contributions to the development of theatrical naturalism. Zola’s best-known literary works include the twenty-volume Les Rougon-Macquart, an epic work that examined the influences of violence, alcohol and prostitution on French society through the experiences of two families, the Rougons and the Macquarts. Other remarkable works by Zola include Contes à Ninon, Les Mystères de Marseille, and Thérèse Raquin. In addition to his literary contributions, Zola played a key role in the Dreyfus Affair of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. His newspaper article J’Accuse accused the highest levels of the French military and government of obstruction of justice and anti-semitism, for which he was convicted of libel in 1898. After a brief period of exile in England, Zola returned to France where he died in 1902. Émile Zola is buried in the Panthéon alongside other esteemed literary figures Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas.