The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays 26 – Anonymous · Verses Across
Literature · Fantasy
The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays 26A Miracle of Saint Anthony
18
Literature · Fantasy
The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays 26
A Miracle of Saint Anthony
AnonymousEnglish
THE INTRUDER; THE DEATH OF TINTAGILES; INTERIOR (OR HOME):
Poignant and mystical tragedies expressing the unseen and inescapable forces surrounding and closing in upon men's lives.
Boni and Liveright; Dodd, Mead.
THE BLUE BIRD: Two peasant children, accompanied by their friends Dog, Cat, Bread, Sugar, and others, search everywhere for the blue bird of happiness. They visit among other places the realms of the dead, where their grandparents are, and of the unborn. Finally they look in the last and likeliest place.
Dodd, Mead.
THE BETROTHAL: Further adventures of Tytyl.
Dodd, Mead.
+John Masefield+
PHILIP THE KING; TRAGEDY OF POMPEY THE GREAT:
High tragedies. The great Pompey, defeated by the upstart Ceesar, is kingly to the end.
Sidgwick and Jackson, London; Macmillan, New York.
THE SWEEPS OF NINETY-EIGHT: A fugitive from an unsuccessful rebellion achieves a sweeping revenge upon the leaders of the enemy; amusing comedy.
Macmillan.
THE TRAGEDY OF NAN: One of the most poignantly tragic of modern plays; the mercilessness of weak and selfish people crushes out a beautiful life.
Richards, London.
+Rutherford Mayne (J. Waddell)+
THE DRONE: An old man by playing craftily at being on the eve of a great invention lives most comfortably on his brother's means; but forces accumulate against him and he is threatened with eviction from the hive.
Luce.
+George Middleton+
THE BLACK TIE: A play of sharp and quiet suffering, presenting at a new angle the Southern cleavage of races. The negro classes are not allowed to appear in the Sunday-school procession, and the small disappointment is typical of greater deprivations.
In Possession and other One-Act Plays, Holt.
MASKS: An author who has spoiled a good play so that it will "go" on the stage is called upon by the angry characters, whom he created and then forced to do as they would not really have done.
In Masks and other One-Act Plays, Holt.
MOTHERS: A mother tries in vain to prevent a young woman whom she loves from marrying her son and repeating the misery of her own marriage with a weakling.
In Tradition and other One-Act Plays, Holt.
ON BAIL: A gambler's wife who has shared his illegal gains must help him pay his debt to the law; their son, too, is involved.
Ibid.
THE TWO HOUSES: An old professor and his wife talk quietly together of the plans and the realities they have lived among.
In Masks, etc.
WAITING: False conventional ideas have long thwarted, and now threaten to wreck, the happiness of people who care greatly for each other.
In Tradition, etc.
+Edna St. Vincent Millay+
ABIA DA CAPO: A fantasy in which Pierrot, Columbine, and the Grecian shepherds of Theocritus display their varied views of life.
In Reedy's Mirror: reprinted in Fifty Contemporary One-Act Plays, Stewart and Kidd, Cincinnati.
+Allan Milne+
THE BOY COMES HOME: A war profiteer has a bad half-hour of difficulties in getting his soldier nephew to work and live according to his views; he then faces the problem in reality.
In First Plays, Knopf.
THE LUCKY ONE: The Lucky One fails to win a trick he had counted on, but his chorus of relatives--surely related to Sir Willoughby Patterne's--do not even notice the misfortune.
Ibid.
WURZEL-FLUMMERY: Of two men offered a good-sized fortune by a will provided they will adopt Wurzel-Flummery in place of their own more satisfactory surnames, and of their decision.
Ibid.
+Allan Monkhouse+
NIGHT WATCHES: A quiet and vivid picturing of the potential cruelty and frightfulness of ordinary well-meaning ignorance and terror; the fable reminds one of Galsworthy's "The Black Godmother," in The Inn of Tranquillity.
In War Plays, Constable, London.
+William Vaughn Moody+
THE FAITH HEALER: A serious drama presenting in moving and human fashion the effects of faith and disillusion.
Macmillan.
+Dhan Gopal Mukerji+
THE JUDGMENT or INDRA: A Hindu play, in which a priest of Indra, after making a supreme sacrifice of himself and others in order to root out human affection from his heart, thinks that his god speaks in the lightning of the storm that ensues.
In Fifty Contemporary One-Act Plays, edited by Shay and Loving. Stewart and Kidd.
+Tracy Mygatt+
GOOD FRIDAY: A Passion Play. A powerful tragedy of the conscientious objector.
Published by the author, 23 Bank Street, New York, N.Y.
+Alfred Noyes+
SHERWOOD: A poetical play of Robin Hood and his band.
Stokes.
+Eugene O'Neill+
BEYOND THE HORIZON: The Pulitzer Prize Play, 1920. A tragic story of a young man who longed to seek romance "beyond the horizon," and could find neither that nor any happiness, but only defeat and misery, in his everyday surroundings.
Boni and Liveright.
BOUND EAST FOR CARDIFF: The injury and death of a forecastle hand, illuminating the varying natures of his shipmates.
In Moon of the Caribbees, Boni and Liveright.
IN THE ZONE: Suspicion of treachery in the submarine zone, directed against a sailor who is different from the rest in the forecastle.
Ibid.
WHERE THE CROSS IS MADE: An old sailor goes mad waiting futilely for the return of a treasure expedition he has sent out, and the madness of his idea spreads like panic.
Ibid.
+Hubert Osborne+
THE GOOD MEN DO: AN INDECOROUS EPILOGUE: Shakespeare's family carefully burn his surviving plays in the effort to cast oblivion upon his low occupation.
In Plays of the 47 Workshop, First Series, 1918.
+Monica Barrie O'Shea+
THE RUSHLIGHT: A mother, whose son may be saved if he will betray his comrades, has only to send him a paper containing the information the authorities want. Her attitude should be compared with that of the women in Campbell of Kilmhor and Lady Gregory's The Gaol Gate.
Drama, November, 1917, 28:602.
+Louis N. Parker+
DISRAELI: Play of intrigue centring about the character of Lord Beaconsfield and his manoeuvres to obtain control of the Suez Canal.
Lane.
MINUET: A brief play of courage and loyalty in face of Madame Guillotine.
In Century Magazine, January, 1915.
+Josephine Preston Peabody+
MARLOWE: A tragedy introducing several of the Elizabethan playwrights in tavern scenes, and making a fine and romantic character of Kit Marlowe.
Houghton Mifflin.
THE PIPER: A pleasant dramatization of the legend of Hamelin Town.
Houghton Mifflin.
THE WOLF OF GUBBIO: A play about Saint Francis and some of his brothers, both animals and villagers.
Houghton Mifflin.
+Louise Saunders (Perkins)+
THE WOODLAND PRINCESS: Very attractive children's operetta with music by Alice Terhune.
Schirmer; French.
+Stephen Phillips+
ULYSSES: A drama or masque of Ulysses' adventures, from his farewell to Calypso through a vigorous combat with the wooers.
Macmillan.
+Eden Phillpotts+
THE SHADOW: A most affecting and tragic play of the influence of a crime upon two people who love most sincerely, and upon their very loyal friend.
In Three Plays, Duckworth, London.
THE MOTHER: A moving presentation of the force of a mother's sense and love; she refuses to shield her son when he has done wrong, but works in every way to set him straight and to continue her influence after her death.
Ibid.
THE POINT OF VIEW: A domestic altercation is arbitrated by a friend of the family, and then the arbiter is given new light on the situation.
Curtain Raisers, Duckworth, London.
+Arthur Wing Pinero+
THE PLAYGOERS: A farce in which a lady attempts to provide cultural amusement for her servants, and succeeds in breaking up the smooth-running establishment.
London.
+David Pinski+
ABIGAIL: A dramatization of a Biblical story from the wars of David. Translated from the Yiddish by Dr. Goldberg.
In Six Plays of the Yiddish Theatre, Luce.
FORGOTTEN SOULS: Fanny Segal's self-sacrifice for her sister and lover is carried to a strange and morbid extreme.
In Six Plays of the Yiddish Theatre, Luce.
+Graham Pryce+
THE COMING OF FAIR ANNIE: A simple but effective dramatization of the old ballad.
Gowans and Gray.
+Richard Pryce and Arthur Morrison+
THE DUMB CAKE: A St. Agnes' Eve story in a London slum.
French.
+Serafin and Joaquim Quintero+
A SUNNY MOHNING: Two very old people recall the tremendously romantic happenings of their early youth.
In Fifty Contemporary One-Act Plays, Stewart and Kidd.
+Edwin Arlington Robinson+
VAN ZORN: A play of New York studio life in which Van Zorn puts his own desires out of court and plays providence in the lives of his friends.
Macmillan.
+Santiago Rosinol+
THE PRODIGAL DOLL: A comical marionette sows his wild oats most violently and repents in deep sorrow.
In Drama, February, 1917, 5:15.
+Edmond Rostand+
CYRANO DE BERGERAC: A great play of a swashbuckling hero of the Paris of Moliere's time.
Doubleday; also in Dickinson's Contemporary Dramatists, I,
Houghton Mifflin.
L'AIGLON: The tragic story of Napoleon's son, the little King of Rome, captive among enemies determined to tame his spirit.
Harper.
THE PRINCESS FAR-AWAY: The story of the Troubadour Rudel and the Princess of Tripoli, celebrated in one of Browning's poems, represents all worship of what is beyond attainment.
Stokes.
THE ROMANCERS: The foolish and romantic notions of two lovers are ably caricatured by their fathers' plots and stratagems.
Baker, 1906.
+Arthur Schnitzler+
LAST MASKS: A dying man in the Vienna Hospital contrives an opportunity for the cruel stroke he has intended at a man who has succeeded where he himself has failed; at the moment of possible triumph a different mood controls him. There are three excellent studies of character in the play.
In Anatol and Other Plays, Boni and Liveright.
+George Bernard Shaw+
ANDROCLES AND THE LION: The old story of a saint whom the lion remembered as his friend--with much shrewd light upon certain types of early Christians.
Constable.
CAESAR AND CLEOPATRA: New views of the chief characters, introduced by two interesting scenes--of a garrison in Syria by night and of Cleopatra in the arms of the Sphinx.
In Three Plays for Puritans, Constable.
THE MAN OF DESTINY: Napoleon after Lodi, attacking all courses of his dinner simultaneously, drawing maps with his fork dipped in the gravy, and discoursing shrewdly on courage and success.
Constable.
O'FLAHERTY, V.C.: On a recruiting mission in his own country, O'Flaherty must account to his mother for his hitherto concealed crime of fighting not against, but for England.
In Heartbreak House, Constable.
AUGUSTUS DOES HIS BIT: A high-born muddler in Britain's conduct of the war.
Ibid.
+Arthur Shirley+
GRINGOIRE THE BALLAD-MAKER: A translation and adaptation of de Banville's comedy about another poet than Villon in the hands of Louis XI.
Dramatic Publishing Company.
+Thomas Wood Stevens+
THE NURSERY MAID OF HEAVEN: "Vernon Lee's" eighteenth-century legend of Sister Benvenuta and the Christ-Child, in a simple and effectively dramatic form.
In Fifty Contemporary One-Act Plays, Stewart and Kidd.
+Alfred Sutro+
THE MAN ON THE KERB: A workman who has failed in every attempt to get work or help faces starvation with his wife and baby in a London tenement basement. No solution of the problem is offered.
In Five Little Plays, Duckworth, London.
A MARRIAGE HAS BEEN ARRANGED: Comedy of a rejected proposal for a society "marriage of convenience," followed by an adjustment of understanding upon another basis.
Ibid.
+John Millington Synge+
DEIRDRE OF THE SORROWS: A beautiful and poetic dramatization of the tragic Celtic legend of Deirdre and the Sons of Usna. This may well be compared with Yeats's dramatization of the same story.
Luce.
THE PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD: Rather fearful comedy of the popular idolatry offered by Irish peasants to a man who boasts he has killed his father.
Luce.
IN THE SHADOW OF THE GLEN: An awesome husband makes a test of his wife's love.
Luce.
THE TINKER'S WEDDING: Rather boisterous comedy of a tinker-woman who upsets ancient custom by insisting on a church wedding.
Luce.
THE WELL OF THE SAINTS: A gruesome tragedy of a blind beggar and his wife. All these dramas are as strangely filled with beauty and poetry of expression as is the Riders to the Sea.
Luce.
+Rabindranath Tagore+
THE POST OFFICE: "A poetic and symbolic play."
Macmillan.
+Anton Tchekhov+
THE BOOR; THE MARRIAGE PROPOSAL; THE WEDDING FEAST; THE TRAGEDIAN IN SPITE OF HIMSELF:
Comical farces of extravagant conversation and action, and apparently real studies of Russian character.
In Plays, Second Series Scribner's.
+William Makepiece Thackeray+
THE ROSE AND THE RING: One of the most delightful of puppet-plays is based on the favorite story.
Smith, Elder and Company, London; Macmillan, New York.
+Augustus Thomas+
OLIVER GOLDSMITH: A very engaging play, introducing Burke, Goldsmith, Garrick in several amusing roles, Dr. Johnson, and others in his circle, and presenting (in Act II) a dress rehearsal of She Stoops to Conquer.
French.
+Frank G. Tompkins+
SHAM: A SOCIAL SATIRE: Of a most superior burglar, who takes only genuine objects of art, disdains the imitation stuff that litters Charles and Clara's home, and reads them a severe lecture on reality and sham in this and other departments of life.
Stewart and Kidd.
+Ridgley Torrence+
GRANNY MAUMEE: Highly tragic play of the blood-hatred of negroes for those who have tortured and killed, and of voodoo rites and miracles; power is given the play by a most human reversal of feeling at the last.
In Plays for a Negro Theatre, Macmillan.
THE RIDER OF DREAMS: A masterful mulatto who keeps his people obedient to a benevolent despotism.
Ibid.
+Stuart Walker+
THE MEDICINE SHOW: Some amusing characters, shiftless but fertile of invention, and their device for getting rich.
In Portmanteau Plays, Stewart and Kidd.
NEVERTHELESS: A play which has interested high-school pupils and their friends in Better Speech programmes.
Ibid.
SIX WHO PASS WHILE THE LENTILS BOIL: A quaint and pleasant comedy of a boy set to watch the lentils cooking, of a queen who is fugitive from execution for a violation of etiquette, and of other matters.
Ibid.
+Percival Wilde+
THE TRAITOR: A traitor in the British camp is discovered by a ruse that is effective and perhaps plausible.
In Dawn and Other One-Act Plays, Holt.
+Oscar M. Wolff+
WHERE BUT IN AMERICA? Amusing small comedy in which a Swedish cook and her fiance have potent influence in an American household.
In Mayorga, Representative One-Act Plays, Little, Brown.
+William Butler Yeats+
DEIRDRE: The last scene in the tragedy of Deirdre of the Sorrows.
Macmillan.
THE GREEN HELMET: Dramatization of a most interesting Gaelic variant of the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; it contains good character study.
Macmillan.
THE KINO'S THRESHOLD: A poet and singer, deprived of his rightful honor at the Irish King's court, makes effective use of the ancient traditional weapon of the hunger strike in order to secure to his art and its worthy practisers their due recognition.
Macmillan.
THE HOUR GLASS: A mystical play of wisdom and folly and the approach of death.
Macmillan.
CATHLEEN NI HOOLIHAN: A moving dramatization of the compelling spirit of Love of Country.
Macmillan.
THE POT OF BROTH: An ancient story, pleasantly dramatized, of a witty wanderer who plays to his advantage on the credulity, greed, and love of flattery of a sharp-tongued peasant woman.
Macmillan.
+William Butler Yeats and Lady Gregory+
THE UNICORN FROM THE STARS: A mystical play of a dreamer's rough contacts with reality.
Stratford, 1904.
+Israel Zangwill+
THE WAR GOD: Those who sacrifice others to the War God are themselves immolated on his altar.
Macmillan.
THE MELTING POT: A serious play in which the tragic consequences of race prejudice are realizably and poignantly set forth.
