The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays 23 – Anonymous · Verses Across
Literature · Fantasy
The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays 23Comedies
18
Literature · Fantasy
The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays 23
Comedies
AnonymousEnglish
Chatto and Windus, London.
+Colin Clements and John M. Saunders, translators+
LOVE IN A FRENCH KITCHEN: A comical medieaval French farce. Jacquinot endures a miserable compound tyranny of petticoats until matters are brought to a head by cumulative injustice and the intervention of accident.
In Poet Lore (1917), 28:722.
+Padraic Colum+
MOGU THE WANDERER: Pageantesque and dramatic story of the rise of a beggar to be the king's vizier, and of as sudden and entire reversal of fortunes.
Little, Brown.
THOMAS MUSKERRY: The tragic story of a poorhouse-keeper who repeats Lear's error of letting go his cherished power, and who suffers as keenly a more humble tragedy.
Maunsell, Dublin.
+Rachel Crothers+
HE AND SHE: A woman's designs win over those of her husband, who has the greater reputation, a large competitive award for a piece of sculpture; but she declines the commission in face of nearer and higher responsibilities.
In Quinn's Representative American Plays, Century.
+Windsor P. Daggett and Winifred Smith+
LELIO AND ISABELLA: A COMMEDIA DELL'ARTE: The story of Romeo and Juliet, as the foremost players of the Italian Comedy of Masks may have given it in seventeenth-century Paris--with an ending of their choice. An interesting study in the type.
In manuscript: N.L. Swartout, Summit, N.J.
+H.H. Davies+
THE MOLLUSC: Clever study of a woman who is a mollusc--not merely lazy, since she is capable of huge exertions to avoid being disturbed; she finds plenty of opposition to show forth her powers upon.
Baker.
+Thomas H. Dickinson+
IN HOSPITAL: A poignant small dialogue of a husband and wife who meet courageously the threatened shipwreck of their happiness.
In Wisconsin Plays, First Series, B.W. Huebsch.
+Beulah M. Dix+
ALLISON'S LAD: A Cavalier lad, about to be shot as a spy, is seized by terror, but dies bravely, "as if strong arms were around him."
In Allison's Lad and Other Martial Interludes, Holt.
THE DARK OF THE DAWN: Colonel Basil Tollocho spares a boy he has sworn to destroy in revenge of a great wrong, and is made glad of his clemency.
Ibid.
THE HUNDREDTH TRICK: Con of the Hundred Tricks takes fearfully stern measures against possible betrayal of his cause.
Ibid.
+Beulah Marie Dix and Evelyn Greenleaf Sutherland+
ROSE O'PLYMOUTH TOWN: A pleasant play of Puritans and their neighbors.
Dramatic Publishing Company.
+Oliphant Down+
THE MAKER OF DREAMS: Poetical small play in which love appears with a new make-up but in the old role.
Gowans and Gray.
+Ernest Dowson+
THE PIERROT OF THE MINUTE: A quite charming tale of Pierrot and the Moon-Maiden.
In his Collected Poems, Lane.
+John Drinkwater+
ABRAHAM LINCOLN: A dramatic presentation of episodes in Lincoln's life, from his nomination to the presidency to his death.
Sidgwick and Jackson; Houghton Mifflin.
COPHETUA: In which King Cophetua justifies to his court and councillors his marriage to the beggar maid.
Sidgwick and Jackson; Houghton Mifflin.
THE STORM: An intense but quiet tragedy of a woman who waits while men search for her husband, lost in a great storm in the hills.
In Four Poetic Plays, Houghtou Mifflin; Pawns, Sidgwick and Jackson.
THE GOD or QUIETNESS: The zest of war draws away all the notable worshipers of the god of quietness, and an angry war-lord slays the god himself.
Ibid.
X-O: A NIGHT OF THE TROJAN WAR: Trojans and Greeks, lovers of poetry, fellowship, and justice, carry on ruthless slaughter, and by irreparable losses strike a balance of exact advantage to either side.
Ibid.
+Lord Dunsany+
THE GODS OF THE MOUNTAIN: Of seven beggars who wear pieces of green silk beneath their rags, and by brilliant devices of Agmar, their leader, contrive to be taken for the gods of the mountain disguised as beggars--until the real gods leave their thrones at Manna.
In Five Plays, Richards, London; Little, Brown.
KING ARGFMENES AND THE UNKNOWN WABBIOR: A slave, born a king, finds an old bronze sword buried in the ground he is tilling, and henceforward has less interest in the bones of the king's dog, who is dying.
Ibid.
THE GOLDEN DOOM: A child's scrawl on the palace pavements furnishes the text for the soothsayers' prophecy of disaster.
Ibid.
THE LOST SILK HAT: Of the embarrassment of a rejected suitor who, in his agitation, has left his hat in the lady's drawing-room and dislikes the idea of returning for it.
Ibid.
THE QUEEN'S ENEMIES: They are invited to a feast of reconciliation in the great banquet room below the level of the river.
In Plays of Gods and Men. Unwin, London; J.W. Luce, Boston.
A NIGHT AT AN INN: A commonplace ancient plot is filled anew with dramatic terror and a sense of mystery.
Ibid.
+Edith M.O. Ellis (Mrs. Havelock Ellis)+
THE SUBJECTION OF KEZIA: Joe Pengilly, a Cornish villager, is finally convinced that strong measures toward her subjection are alone capable of keeping his wife's love, and buys a stout cane. We learn how he fared in carrying these measures out.
In Love in Danger, Houghton Mifflin.
+St. John Ervine+
FOUR IRISH PLAYS:
MIXED MARRIAGE: A tragedy of the violent hatreds of Ulster.
Maunsell.
THE ORANGEMAN: A comic study of the petty madness of the same hatreds.
Maunsell.
THE CRITICS: Dramatic critics furiously condemn a play at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Gradually we discover the idea of the play through their abuse, and at last we recognize it.
Maunsell.
JANE CLEGG: A strong and clear-sighted, honest woman has to deal with a feeble and braggart husband whose foolish crime threatens to wreck her own and her children's lives.
Sidgwick and Jackson.
+Rachel Lyman Field+
THREE PILLS IN A BOTTLE: Fantastic play of a little sick boy who gives the medicine that was to have made him strong to feeding the starved and abused souls of various passers-by.
In Plays of the 47 Workshop, First Series, Brentano's.
+Anatole France+
THE MAN WHO MARRIED A DUMB WIFE: A mad and comic farce, in the tradition of Pierre Patelin and The Physician in Spite of Himself. Judge Botal calls in a learned physician and his aides to make his dumb wife speak. The result is so astoundingly successful that he pleads for relief. Finally a desperate remedy is found.
Translated by Curtis Hidden Page, Lane, 1915.
+J.O. Francis+
CHANGE: The tragic conflict of ideals of two generations which have grown irreparably apart in social and economic views.
Educational Publishing Company, Cardiff; Doubleday, New York.
+Zona Gale+
THE NEIGHBORS: Kindliness called forth among village people to aid a poor seamstress who is to undertake the care of her orphan nephew.
In Wisconsin Plays, First Series, B.W. Huebsch.
MISS LULU BETT: A starved life blossoms suddenly and unexpectedly. This play, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for 1920, is stronger and finer work than the author has done heretofore.
Appleton (in novel form).
+John Galsworthy+
THE ELDEST SON: Sir William Cheshire comes to quite different solutions of similar problems when different individual and class factors enter into them.
Scribner's.
JUSTICE: Mr. Ludwig Lewisohn writes: "The economic structure of society on any basis requires the keeping of certain compacts. It cannot endure such a breaking of these compacts as Falder is guilty of when he changes the figures on the cheque. Yet by the simple march of events it is overwhelmingly proven that society here stamps out a human life not without its fair possibilities-- for eighty-one pounds."
Scribner's.
THE LITTLE MAN: Brilliant caricature of various national types of tourist, and absurd apotheosis of the Little Man, of no particular nation and of insignificant appearance, who proves quietly capable of doing what the rest discuss.
Scribner's.
THE MOB: The reply of the hysterical and "patrioteering" members of his own class, and of the many-headed rage, to a man who stood against an unjust war.
Scribner's.
THE PIGEON: A discussion of social misfits and mavericks, with, of course, no attempted panacea or solution.
Scribner's.
THE SILVER Box:
"Jones: Call this justice? What about 'im? 'E got drunk! 'E took the purse--'E took the purse, but (in a muffled shout) it's 'is money got 'im off! Justice!
"The Magistrate: We will now adjourn for lunch." (Act II.)
In Plays, First Series, Scribner's, 1916.
STRIFE: In the strike the leaders of the men and of the employers are stanch against compromise, but "the strong men with strong convictions are broken. The second-rate run the world through half-measures and concessions." (Lewisohn.)
Ibid.
+Louise Ayers Garnett+
MASTER WILL OF STRATFORD: A pleasant drama of Will Shakespeare's boyhood. Compare Landor's "Citation and Examination of Will Shakespeare for Deer-Stealing."
Macmillan.
+Alice Gerstenberg+
OVERTONES: While two women are conversing politely, they are attended by their real, unconventional selves, who interrupt to say what the women actually think and mean. Compare Ninah Wilcox Putnam's Orthodoxy (Forum, June, 1914, 51:801), in which everyone in church says what he is thinking instead of what is proper and expected.
In Washington Square Plays, Doubleday.
+Giuseppa Giacosa+
THE RIGHTS OF THE SOUL: Anna is sternly loyal to her husband Paolo, but refuses to submit to his incessant prying into her individuality and questioning of her thoughts and her feelings.
Frank Shay.
THE WAGER: "Sentimental comedy, poetic and graceful, by one of the greatest contemporary Italian dramatists."
Barrett H. Clark, translator. French.
+W.S. Gilbert+
ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN: A most absurd parody on Hamlet, wherein a lamentable tragedy written and repented by his uncle the king is unearthed and turned to the sad prince's undoing.
