In the play, George and Martha invite a new professor and his wife to their house after a party. Martha is the daughter of the president of the university (believed to be based on Trinity College) where George is an associate history professor. Nick (who is never addressed or introduced by name) is a biology…
GASLIGHT tells the story of the Manninghams who live on Angel Street in the 19th Century When the curtain rises, all appears to be peaceful. It is soon apparent that Manningham, a suavely sinister and handsome man, is slowly torturing his gentle, lovely wife into insanity under the guise of kindness While he is out,…
Rita, a young hairdresser, registers for a literature course offered by the Open University, sensing that it will enrich and increase her possibilities in life. During her tutorials, she becomes a different person, gradually liberating herself from the limitations of her working class background, family and marriage. She exchanges the small talk of the hair…
“. . . modern British theatre has an actual birthday; by virtually universal consent, it is regarded as the first performance at the Royal Court Theatre in London of John Osborne’s LOOK BACK IN ANGER on May 8, 1956.” (Clive Barnes, American theater critic).This first play by Osborne was so vitriolic in its attack on…
PRIVATE LIVES, in the opinion of most critics, is the likeliest candidate as Noël Coward’s masterpiece. It, along with HAY FEVER, DESIGN FOR LIVING, PRESENT LAUGHTER and BLITHE SPIRIT, admit Coward to the line of great English comic dramatists such as Congreve, Sheridan and Wilde. “With the sole exception of Bernard Shaw, Noël Coward has…
Sidney Bruhl is a once-successful playwright whose last several productions have flopped at the box office. He then receives a script by a novice writer named Clifford Anderson for a stage thriller entitled Deathtrap. Bruhl tells his wife Myra that the script is brilliant and he then concocts a murder plot whereby he will offer…
A man sits peacefully reading in the sunlight in Central Park. There enters a second man. He is a young, unkempt and undisciplined vagrant where the first is neat, ordered, well-to-do and conventional. The vagrant is a soul in torture and rebellion. He longs to communicate so fiercely that he frightens and repels his listener.…
In THE LOVER Harold Pinter leads the audience to believe that there are three characters in the play: the wife, the husband and the lover. But the lover who comes to call in the afternoons is revealed to be the husband adopting a role. He plays the lover for her: she plays the whore for him.…
Arrogant, self centered and sharp tongued Jason Carmichael, successful co author of Broadway romantic comedies, is facing two momentous events: he is about to marry a society belle and his collaborator is retiring. Enter Phoebe Craddock, mousy Vermont schoolteacher and budding playwright. Presto! Jason acquires a talented and adoring collaborator. Fame and success are theirs…
Arrogant, self centered and shTHE GLASS MENAGERIE, Tennessee Williams’ first great hit, opened to critical acclaim in Chicago on December 26, 1944, and then moved on to Broadway where it made its author internationally famous. The play’s setting is St. Louis, where Williams lived for 20 years and with which he had a “love-hate