History of Western Theatre: 17th Century to Now/American Pre-WWII - Wikibooks, open books for an open world History of Western Theatre: 17th Century to Now/American Pre-WWII From Wikibooks, open books for an open world Eugene O'Neill[ edit ] Eugene O'Neill was the dominant playwright of early 20th century American drama, 1936 Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953) is the dominant figure of early to middle 20th century American drama for such plays as "Desire under the elms" (1924), "Ah, wilderness!" (1933), "The iceman cometh" (1940), and "A long day's journey into night" (1941). Of "Desire under the elms", Krutch (1967) says: "The struggle of the son against the father, the son's resentment of the intruding woman, canonical incest itself, are part of the story whose interest is deeper than any local creed or any temporary society, whether of our own time or of another.

It is one of the great achieve- ments of the play that it makes us feel them not merely as violent events but as mysteriously funda- mental in the human story and hence raises the ac- tors in them somehow above the level of mere characters in a single play, giving them something which suggests the kind of undefined meaning which we feel in an Oedipus or a Hamlet." "The iceman cometh" contains parallels with Ibsen’s “The wild duck” (1884). Brustein (1964) enumerates the men’s illusions: political: Hugo’s love of the proletariat, racial: Joe’s demands of equality, domestic: Chuck and Cora’s fantasy of farm life, status-related: the whores’ difference between whores and tarts, psychological: Parrot’s false motives in betraying his mother, intellectual: Willie Oban’s excuse for abandoning law school, philosophical: Larry’s pretense of disillusionment and detachment, religious: Hickey’s false motives in betraying his wife.

In “A long day’s journey into night”, Brustein (1964) points out that “here is a family living in close symbiotic relationship, a single organism with four branches, where a twitch in one creates a spasm in another.” For example, Tyrone”s miserliness and acting career contributed to his wife’s drug addiction, causing respectively access to a quack doctor and her sense of being abandoned at home. His miserliness is also the source of Edmund’s resentment at being sent into a second-class sanatarium for the treatment of tuberculosis. "A long day's journey into night"[ edit ] James Tyrone played by Paul Hartmann, Mary by Elisabeth Bergner, Jamie by Heinz Drache, and Edmund by Martin Benrath, 1957 German production Time: 1910s. Place: New England, USA. Text at ? In their summer house, James Tyrone is glad that his wife, Mary, has been looking better lately. Nevertheless, their son, Edmund, sometimes hears her moving about at night, especially on entering the spare bedroom. She reassures him by saying she goes there only to get away from her husband's snoring.

The family is worried about Edmund's coughing, perhaps a sign of consumption, though he seems more worried about his mother than about himself. Edmund and hiq brother, Jamie, taunt each other about taking some of their father's alcoholic beverage and watering it down to avoid detection. More seriously, Jamie accuses Edmund of leaving their mother unsupervised. Though worried, Edmund considers his brother overly suspicious. When Mary appears after lying down for a long time, Jamie becomes suspicious again and she irritated at his cynicism. She is also frustrated on the shabbiness of the house, blaming it on her husband's reluctance to spend money, a bitter joke in the family. When Jamie stares at her and she asks why, he angrily replies she should look at her glazed eyes in the mirror. The following day, Mary and their servant, Cathleen, have returned from the drugstore. Mary expresses more feelings of frustration at her present condition, how once she had shown promise as a pianist but abandoned it for the sake of her husband's career as an actor. She says it is because of her arthritic hands that she needs to take her medication, purchased through Cathleen. She is about to go upstairs for more as James and Edmund arrive drunk.

They miserably notice she has gone back to her drug addiction. She diverts attention by blaming her husband for Jamie's drunken habits. Edmund confirms her worst fears by saying he has been diagnosed with consumption, which she refuses to believe, blaming the doctor's incompetence. In frustration, he exlaims how difficult it is to have "a dope fiend for a mother." When James returns at dinner time, his wife goes upstairs, he too depressed to prevent her. At midnight, Edmund joins his father for more drinking. Despite financial success, James considers his career ruined because he repeatedly played the same acting part, which dissipated his talent. When Jamie arrives drunk, his father leaves to avoid a quarrel. Jamie admits that despite his love of Edmund, his sense of failure forbids him to wish for his brother's success. Jamie dozes offs but is awaken by his father's belligerence. All three gaze in misery as Mary enters wearing her wedding gown, reminiscing about her happy girlhood. "Desire under the elms"[ edit ] The tranquility at a farm is disrupted by the rivalry between father and son for the same woman Time: 1850. Place: New England, USA.

Text at Considering the farm as his own since his mother's death, a subject of dispute between her family and his father, Eben wakes up his two half-brothers with the news that their father, Ephraim, has married a second time. He offers them $300 for their share of the farm. The half-brothers accept to go to California and hunt for gold. His stepmother, Abbie, disapproves of his visiting a local whore, but he says she herself is a whore for selling herself to obtain a farm rightly his. To avenge herself for these harsh words, she says to Ephraim his son attempted to seduce her. When Ephraim threatens to kill him, a frightened Abbie tries to mitigate her lie. When Ephraim threatens to force him out, she insists that the farm needs another hand. To win her husband over, she suggests that they try to beget a son, but with the large difference in their age, the husband being much older, this proves difficult. As a result, Abbie tries to seduce Eben for this purpose. She opens the main parlor, closed since his mother's death.

After much effort, Abbie succeeds, Eben being convinced that this forms part of his mother's revenge against her husband. "I'm the prize rooster o' this roost," boasts Eben to his unsuspecting father. Two weeks after the son's birth, Ephraim taunts Eben by revealing that the farm will belong to his newborn and also that he knows about his attempt at seducing his wife. Choking in rage, Eben feels he was manipulated by Abbie. He fights with his father. Ephraim starts to choke Eben until Abbie steps in. Eben wants to follow his half-brothers to California, but Abbie, loving him all the more, tries to prevent it. He does not heed her. To prove her love towards him, she smothers the newborn with a pillow. When Ephraim discovers the baby's death, his wife admits the deed and specifies that the father is Eben, at which he is suddenly glad the baby died. When Eben discovers the baby's death, he is aghast and leaves her to alert the sheriff. When he returns, Ephraim orders him out.

Even angrier, Ephraim turns the livestock loose and intends to burn the farm and go to California with the money he has saved, but the money was stolen by Eben to pay off his half-brothers. Ephraim can only remain alone at the farm, more lonely than ever, submitting his will to a God who is "not easy" while the sheriff arrests Abbie along with Eben, who, despite her denial, confesses to being auxiliary to the crime. "Ah, wilderness!" poster for the Federal Theatre Playhouse, 1934 Time: 1906. Place: Connecticut, USA. Text at ? The Miller family breakfast is interrupted by McComber, their next-door neighbor. McComber accuses Nat Miller's son, Richard, for attempting to corrupt his daughter, Muriel, and presents a letter on her behalf, ending their amorous relationship. Nat superficially defends his son, but is hesitant to challenge one of the most important advertisers in his local newspaper. He is all the more worried that his wife, Essie, had anxiously mentioned Richard's taste for subversive poetry, as found in Swinburne, Wilde, and Khayyam.

When Richard learns of the letter, he is devastated. The unhappy development of young love is in contrast to the non-development of old love between Nat's sister, Lily, and Essie's brother, Sid. For many years, despite their love of each other, Lily has put off marrying Sid because of his drunken habits. Disillusioned, Richard goes with his brother's university friend, Wint, ostensibly for a double date with two women, but, in actual fact, a visit to the local whorehouse. While Wint indulges his cravings upstairs, Richard sits very uncomfortably downstairs with Belle, contenting himself merely with talk. When a brash salesman insults her, he defends her by striking him. Late at night, to his parents' consternation, Richard arrives drunk and disheveled. They decide to punish him, Nat still hesitant on how to proceed and especially worried about what he should say. When Richard wakes up the following morning, he receives a welcoming letter from Muriel stating that her father forced her to write the previous letter. She promises undying love and suggests that they meet secretly that night on a beach, where they discuss their future and kiss for the first time.

Nat is then relieved to learn that Muriel's father has changed his mind about his son. Still hesitant, Nat speaks to Richard about the temptations of youth, especially drinking and illicit love relations, whose dangers Richard agrees to avoid and to abide from this moment on to his father's advice. "The iceman cometh"[ edit ] Time: 1912. New York, USA. Text at ? In Harry Hope's rundown rooming house and bar, alcoholics await the arrival of a popular salesman known as Hickey, to plan Harry's surprise birthday party the next day. The regulars live on drunken hopes. Harry has not left the bar once since his wife's death 20 years ago, but says he intends to on his birthday. Joe, former owner of a casino, intends to re-open another one. He and his friend, Captain Lewis, former infantryman in the Boer War, expect to return home. Pat McGloin, a former policeman convicted and fired from his job, intends to appeal the decision when the right moment comes up. Ed, Harry's brother-in-law, a former circus box-office man, was fired for cheating, but hopes one day to get his job back.

Jimmy Tomorrow, former British newspaperman, procrastinates about getting another job. Chuck, the day bartender, plans to marry Cora, a whore, the next day. The regulars are stunned to find Hickey so changed, no longer joking but sober. He wants them to quit their "pipe dreams" and, to obtain peace, embrace instead their hopeless condition. They are reluctant to do so. The next day, Harry goes out, but, soon aware of his great fears, is forced back to the comfort of the bar. One by one, they resent Hickey's interference, except Larry and Don, friends who have known each other for a long time, as Larry's former girlfriend is Don's mother. Larry learns that Don was the informant responsible for her arrest. In anguish at losing his friendship, Don runs up to his room to jump off the fire escape. Larry guesses at his intention but does nothing to prevent it and only wishes for his own death. Though Hickey had first told the regulars his wife had died by accident, he admits to murder.

The police arrive, perhaps called by Hickey himself, who justifies the murder on the basis of his love towards her, a woman living a hopeless life, always ready to forgive his whore-mongering and alcoholism. The regulars are relieved on seeing Hickey show signs of insanity, for now they can return to their pipe dreams. They decide to testify in favor of Hickey's insanity at his trial, despite his wish for a death sentence. Thornton Wilder[ edit ] Also notable is Thornton Wilder (1897-1975) for "Our town" (1938) and "The skin of our teeth" (1942). "Our town"[ edit ] The stage manager presents a day in the life of an east coast town and its aftermath. Played by Hal Holbrook, 1977 Time: 1900s and future. Place: Grover's Corners, USA. Text at ? The stage manager explains that Mrs Gibbs has told Mrs Webb that she has been wishing for several years to take an overseas holiday with her husband, but he does not care to go.

Emily, daughter to Mr and Wrs Webb and a brilliant student, helps the more dull-minded George, son to Dr and Mrs Gibbs, with problems in arithmetic. But she has trouble concentrating. "I can't work at all. The moonlight's so terrible," she tells George who lives across the street from her. Yet before going to bed, she has difficulty sleeping because after speaking with him, the moonlight then becomes "wonderful". Dr Gibbs speaks to George about his intention to become a farmer. Does he really think he can get up early, milk, feed the stock? "Well, George, while I was in my office today I heard a funny sound, says Dr Gibbs, "and what do you think it was? It was your mother chopping wood." This reproof shames George. He promises to do his chores with greater diligence. Simon Stinson is rolling drunk on the streets again, but because Constable Warren sees his wife looking for him, he looks the other way.

On George and Emily's wedding day, Mr Webb reminisces before the groom on the advice his father once gave him: "Best thing to do is to give an order, even if it don't make sense; just so she'll learn to obey...And, oh yes, he said never, never, let her know how much money you have, never...So I took the opposite of my father's advice and have been happy ever since." George and Emily knew they were meant for each other when she criticized him for being too conceited, not perfect as other men are, such as her and his father, women being less liable to be perfect, because they are inherently "more nervous". Over strawberry ice-cream sodas, both realize they have been noticing each other nearly all the time. However, Mrs Webb finds it "downright cruel about sending our girls out into marriage that way". "I hope some of her girl friends have told her a thing or two," she adds. The couple are married, but Emily soon dies in childbirth. At the funeral, the dead come back to talk, including Emily with her mother, Stimson, and others.

When allowed to live a day in her life over again, from fourteen years ago on her twelfth birthday, she cannot bear to look long. "That's what it was to be alive," Stimson concludes, "to move about in a cloud of ignorance-". When George enters the cemetery and sinks in sorrow over Emily's grave, she concludes with the others: "They don't understand, do they?" "The skin of our teeth"[ edit ] Antrobus is in conflict with all of society, including his family. Played by Thornton Wilder, 1948 Time: Past, 1940s, future. Place: New Jersey, USA. Text at ? In the far distant past, the environment has become very cold; Dogs stick on sidewalks, animals of all kinds are kept inside houses, dinosaur heads peep in to say they are cold. George Antrobus, inventor of the wheel and the alphabet, argues with his wife, Maggie, on the feasibility of keeping refugees such as Homer and Moses from the cold. To maintain sufficient fire, George orders the breaking down of fences, chairs, and beds. He is dispirited over his young son, Henry, in the habit of throwing stones at neighboring children.

Maggie defends him by saying he is only four thousand years old. George is encouraged by the fine recitation of a Longfellow poem on the part of his young daughter, Gladys, and by his son's knowledge of the multiplication table. However, George hits him in frustration when he is too sleepy to recite more. As the newly named president of the order of mammals, George pronounces a speech in Atlantic City, New Jersey, whereby he prophesies "with complete lack of confidence that a new day of security is about to dawn." The winner of the 1942 beauty context, their old housekeeper, Sabina, wishes to wrest George away from his wife and marry him, feeling that "everybody in the world, except for a few people like you and me, are people of straw." A broadcast official is frantic to organize George's speech over the radio, all the more so as there appears to be advance warnings of a mighty storm. When learning of his intention to leave her, Maggie is quite cool, saying: "I married you because you gave me a promise.

That promise made up for your faults...and it was the promise that made the marriage." As the storm begins to grow violent, George ignores Sabina and calls to his wife to see the whales far off in the ocean. The family escapes as the pier is about to break, Sabina begging to obtain her old position back as housekeeper. Many years later, a terrible war has been waged but now it is over, when George and Henry were found on opposite sides. Gladys has survived with her baby. Sabrina is glad to acknowledge her continued admiration for her employer, who has not lost his power of inventiveness, having developed "a grass soup that doesn't give you the diarrhea." Henry is still angry at his father, kicking his old books about. Maggie tells Sabina she is determined to putting their old house to rights. George angrily confronts his son and will fight him "as long as you mix up your idea of liberty with your idea of hogging everything to yourself," in contrast to "something that everyone has a right to." Because of the immense suffering related to the war, George feels he has lost "the desire to begin again".

Yet despite her angry feelings and poverty, Sabina wishes to cooperate, if only to distribute beef-cubes. Suddenly, George remembers three things that always helped him see clearer: the people's needs, the family, and his books. "I used to give names to the hours of the night," he says.

"Nine o'clock is represented by Spinoza, the philosopher, when "all the objects of my desire and fear are...nothing save insofar as the mind was affected by them," ten o'clock by Plato when it is decided that a ruler is one who has "established order in himself," eleven o'clock by Aristotle when "this good estate of the mind possessing its object in energy we call divine," and midnight by a passage from Genesis in the Bible when emerging from the darkness "there was light." Lillian Hellman[ edit ] Lillian Hellman described how we should "take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes (Solomon 2:15) as well as the evils attending children's rumors to two schoolteachers Lillian Hellman (1905-1984) also contributed in dramatic lore with "The children's hour" (1934) and "The little foxes" (1939). Of “the Children’s hour”, Bentley (1954) comments: “The material from which “A children's hour” suggests two stories.

The first is a story of heterosexual teachers accused of Lesbianism; the enemy is a society which punishes the innocent. The second is a story of Lesbian teachers accused of Lesbianism; the enemy is a society which punishes Lesbians. Now, since either one of these stories could make an acceptable indignant play, one could scarcely be surprised if a playwright tried to tell them both at once. This is not quite what Miss Hellman does. She spends the greater part of the evening on the first story. In fact the indignation she arouses in us has but one source our impression that the charge of Lesbianism is unfounded, an impression reinforced by everyone's holy horror whenever the subject comes up. Then, in the last few minutes, we learn that one of the teachers is Lesbian. But it is too late for Miss Hellman to tell Story Two and spell out its moral. The "guilty" teacher kills herself, and the curtain comes down. Taking the play as a technical exercise, we could praise this ending as clever, or damn it as clumsy, but if we are interested in Miss Hellman's indignation, and especially if during the evening she has induced us to share it, we are bound to feel cheated….

As our feeling of being moral increases, our awareness of moral issues declines. The "too moral" writer takes everything for granted. For example, her antagonists. In “A children's hour”, there are three: cowardice (Mrs. Mortar), credulity (Mrs. Tilford), and sheer evil (Mary). In each case, Miss Hellman counts on our having our response ready. Our hatred of cowardice is to put the flesh and blood on the skeleton from Broadway farce which is all the author provides. Our understanding of credulity is relied on to make plausible an old lady's believing the villain's implausible accusations: no character is created of whom we must say, "she of course would have believed." Finally, our being against sin is supposed to assure our hatred of a villain's unexplained villainy. I for one would not insist on a psychological explanation of evil (though such an explanation would be in place in drama of this sort) but if you don't explain it psychologically, you must either explain it some other way or create it as the Elizabethans did, making it live moment by moment in language that sprang from poetic vision and moral imagination.

Miss Hellman's villain is a diabolus ex machina not simply lowered on stage at the end but smuggled in at the outset. What a playwright might fairly ask us to accept at the close we have to concede at the very beginning… Instead of the sweet little child done to death by the tyrannical teacher we have the sweet little teacher done to death by the tyrannical child an inversion of orthodox melodrama which would be all very well if the values of melodrama, as well as the roles, were inverted. But Miss Hellman is a melodramatist, first, in seeing life as a melodrama insofar as she sees it at all and, second, in being less concerned to see life than to manipulate it. Her chief device is the purely mechanical inversion of stock melodramatic characters. A child is wicked, a grandmother (in Autumn Garden, say) cynical. The effect is one of sophistication melodrama for a smart set.

The pleasure in seeing such things resides in the titillation of cruelty twice removed from our on backs once by the proscenium arch, a second time by the sophisticated style…Everything on stage seems unreal, inorganic, unrelated to everything else…Hence there is an absence of genuine passion not only in the individual characters but in the whole production, and nothing in its place but the hard humorless drive of the authoress's will-power. Since indignation is a genuine passion, I adjudge “A children's hour”, on its own terms, a failure.” Titus (1991) comments: “This almost entirely female society is full of jealousy and manipulation; the characters compete for love and find accusations of excessive attachment easy to make and easy to believe. Mary's claim that the teachers have a lesbian relationship names and heightens what is already in the air. Mrs. Mortar, for example (there is no Mr. Mortar, as far as the play is concerned), feels in competition with Karen Wright for the attentions of her niece, Martha. Jealous of the affectionate friendship between the two teachers, Mrs. Mortar accuses her niece of resenting Karen's upcoming marriage with Joe Cardin.

It is this accusation, overheard, that provides Mary with the seed of her slanderous attack on Karen and Martha. Although Mrs. Mortar calls Martha's affection for Karen "unnatural, just as unnatural as it can be," her own past seems somewhat ambiguous (p. 25). Shortly after we learn of Karen and Martha's revised vacation plans. To Martha's disappointment the two women will now be accompanied by the young doctor?Mrs. Mortar recalls her own vacation to England with Delia Lampert, a beloved friend, and the disruption of that friendship by Delia’s unhappy marriage. Mrs. Mortar is, in addition, easily seduced by Mary Tilford's wilted bouquets and flattery; her fatuousness is surpassed only by Mrs. Tilford's. Like the aunt, the grandmother seems overly attached to her younger relation. In her conversation with Mrs. Tilford, Mary repeatedly speaks of this affection and uses physical caresses to secure confirmations of love. Like Mrs. Mortar, Mrs. Tilford finds the idea of Martha and Karen making love easy to believe.

Mary's uncertain descriptions of "funny noises" and "funny things," communicated to her grandmother in "fast, excited" whis? pers, seem to confirm something perhaps unacknowledged, but already present in the older woman's mind (p. 54). Mrs. Tilford only hesitates a moment before picking up the phone and spreading the news. Suggestions of lesbian desire are diffused throughout the text, touching every character except Karen Wright. Early in the play, Hellman presents the students simultaneously discussing changes in sleeping arrangements and passing a forbidden copy of Mademoiselle de Maupin from bedroom to bedroom. This is the text whose "one part" all the girls want to read…The play covertly suggests that desire for each other is the common if unacknowledged possession of the majority of women, but it overtly represents lesbianism as so fearful that the teachers are viewed as monsters and shunned in the street, so potentially infectious that even Karen's sensible, stalwart fiancé hesitates to kiss and hold her, fearing contamination.” "The little foxes"[ edit ] Time: 1900s. Place: USA. Text at ?

A businessman from Chicago agrees with his two brothers, Ben and Oscar, on opening a cotton mill, but they need money from a third brother, Horace, who has not as yet agreed on it. Horace's wife, Regina, says that, though he offers to pay one third, he should have twice that amount in return. While the two brothers mutter in discontent at that offer, Oscar discovers that Horace's son, Leo, has looked inside his father's safety deposit box at the bank and found valuable bonds, enough to close the deal. "If he doesn't look at them until autumn, he wouldn't even miss them out of the box," Oscar suggests. Horace arrives after being five months away to treat a heart condition. Regina suggests that the disease might be due to his "fancy women", which he considers unlikely. She explains the mill business, specifying he will get a larger share at Oscar's expense, but Horace responds: "We'll sit by and watch the boys grow rich." Meanwhile, Oscar informs Ben of Leo's discovery. In turn, Ben informs a stunned Regina that Oscar intends to go to Chicago with the money.

Growing desperate, Regina exclaims her husband: "You hate to see anybody live now, don't you?" When he refuses to change his mind, she retorts: "I hope you die, I hope you die soon." A few days later, Horace discovers Leo's theft and reveals it to his wife, but he plans to do nothing about it. In the midst of an argument, he suffers a heart attack while his wife does nothing to help him. Eventually, Leo discovers that his uncle knows about the theft. Regina tells her brothers that if Horace dies, she will either get 75% of the business in exchange for the bonds or report them to the police. When they discover he is indeed dead, they are forced to accept. Suspecting her mother of treachery, Alexandra refuses to follow Regina to a life of pleasure in Chicago. "The children's hour"[ edit ] Time: 1930s. Place: USA. Text at ? Karen and Martha own a girls' boarding school, helped by the latter's aunt, Lily. To avoid working, one of their pupils, Mary, pretends to be sick and is examined by Dr Joe Cardin, her cousin and engaged to be married to Karen.

To rid herself of her troublesome aunt, Martha suggests that she should travel for a while. Lily angrily accuses her niece of jealousy towards anyone around Joe. Judged to be healthy, Mary asks her grandmother Amelia to allow her to leave the establishment, but is refused. Knowing little of such latters but helped by a book kept well hidden, she accuses Karen and Martha of engaging in an illicit love-affair with each other. This time Amelia accedes to her request. She contacts the students' parents, so that by word of mouth Karen and Martha lose most of their pupils. One of them, Rosalie, remains faithful. Karen and Martha confront Amelia with her granddaughter's lie. Though Mary's story is inconsistent, Rosalie reluctantly corroborates it in fear of being accused of the same tendency. Under these disagreeable conditions, Aunt Lily finally decides to go away. Karen and Martha accuse Amelia of libel in court, but lose their case. When Lily returns, both women accuse her of disloyalty. Joe remains loyal, but, because of the scandal, is forced to move to a distant town. He proposes that the women should move away as he did.

Unsure on whether he believes their innocence, Karen proposes that they separate despite his unwillingness to do so. When Martha learns of this, she is consumed with guilt, feeling that the accusation, though not based in fact, might be true within. Karen dismisses the thought. As Karen sits alone, she hears a pistol shot in Martha's room. In the aftermath of her friend's suicide, Amelia begs Karen's forgiveness for having uncovered too late Mary's lies, but is not forgiven. Louis Kaufman Anspacher[ edit ] Louis Kaufman Anspacher (1878-1947) wrote two plays of interest: "The unchastened woman" (1916) and "Our children" (1913).

Eaton (1916) praises "The unchastened woman" for the contrast shown between characters, especially the pro-worker, Hildegarde, and the woman of the world, Caroline, stating "Lawrence's wife is one of those strong, energetic, idealistic, radical young women who just now are so numerous in New York (and elsewhere) and are often actually accomplishing so much in organization of the garment workers, in industrial reform, in charities and even in liter ature. To throw into strong contrast such a woman as this and such a product of the parasitic rich as Caroline Knollys is to create instantly a living, vital dramatic situation." "The unchastened woman"[ edit ] Text at Hubert learns that his wife, Caroline, was caught at customs making false declarations along with a friend of hers, Susan,. "Two women without even the wretched excuse of poverty attempting to defraud the government!" he exclaims. Caroline explains that she made a settlement with the authorities, in contrast to Susan who declared everything.

The couple have resigned themselves to an amiable arrangement by which, according to Hubert, she has broken all her vows except one, marital fidelity, while he has kept all his vows except that one. More precisely, she is aware of her husband's relations with Emily, and is not unhappy about it, revealing to Susan that at any moment she can name that woman as a co-respondent to divorce proceedings that would be favorable to her. She wishes to continue her platonic friendship with Lawrence, a needy architect, by giving him a commission to remodel their house. Out of curiosity, she gauges Lawrence's relation with his wife, Hildegarde, who has organized an employment bureau in connection with a cooperation of tenements for poor people, their only source of revenue at present. Hubert discovers that Hildegarde is the one who wrote a newspaper article against the abuses, notably in child labor practices, of the Homestead Mills factory of wool products, of which he owns the majority stock. However, she reassures him on one point. "Tomorrow we begin on your competitors," seh announces. Alone with Hildegarde, Caroline points out that this type of work might constitute a hindrance to her husband's ambitions.

To prove her power over him, she proposes that Lawrence take up the fourth floor of their house as a studio, which he gladly accepts, both out of friendship towards her and his need to distance himself from squalid surroundings. Meanwhile, Emily informs Hubert that it was through her means as an employee at customs that his wife got off so easily, though she must pay a large sum of money to avoid being arrested. She also informs him of her intention to abandon their adulterous relation to marry Michael, a Russian immigrant working as a newspaper reporter. When Hubert angrily confronts his wife because of the large sum, she haughtily refuses to pay. "It would really be indelicate of you to insist that I should pay your mistress," she affirms, at which Hubert chokes with fury. At the tenements, Lawrence worries over the fact that his wife has invited Caroline and Susan over for supper, angrily fussing about. She admonishes him. "They are your friends, and you know I never miss a chance of interesting rich people in this philanthropy," she says. Alone with Lawrence, Caroline offers to help his career.

"Oh, I want to see you free- free from all the petty scruples that would hinder you." she says. "That's my work now, for while you're building houses, I shall be building your career." The party is interrupted by the arrival of Michael, who happens also to be the friend of Lawrence and Hildegarde. He is overjoyed at the settlement by arbitration with Homestead Mills, largely in favor of the workers. Lawrence is nervous over the consequences of these news on Caroline, who attempts to twit Michael about his pro-labor views. He challenges back. "You see, I know you," he says. "You're a spoiled American woman, which means you take neither our government nor yourself seriously. I don't blame you; neither do I. In other words, we have a sense of humor." He casually mentions he knows about her difficulties at customs, but was forced to abandon the thought of publishing the story through the intercession of a friend. "Well, to resume: strange to say, I wrote that the people whose fortunes have been made in industries protected by the government are always the very ones most eager to evade the customs imposed by that government to protect their industries," he declares.

Aghast at this left-wing talk, Susan wishes to leave at once, but Caroline becomes bolder when she sees Emily arrive. She accuses Emily of being her husband's mistress. Michael does not believe it and proposes to speak to her husband about this. For good measure, after hearing Hildegarde defend Emily and insisting on a retraction, Caroline insinuates that she herself is enjoying an ongoing amorous relation with her husband. Later, worried about his wife's whereabouts, Lawrence lies to Caroline over the telephone by saying he has hurt his ankle and cannot join her with an acquaintance that might have yielded him a second commission. When Hildegarde joins him, she tells him that it might be best that they separate for awhile, but Lawrence does not want to. The couple is surprised by the arrival of Hubert. Hildegarde still insists on the necessity of his wife's retraction, with which Hubert agrees. He pretends to be surprised after hearing about Caroline's innuendo concerning her own marriage. Lawrence becomes even more frightened during this encounter, but is forced to challenge his boss by stating that his wife's accusation is a lie.

Hubert coolly insists that unless she retracts, Hildegarde will be named co-respondent to divorce proceedings, news which now frighten the latter as well. All three are surprised by Caroline's arrival, who expected to see Lawrence alone. Aware she is losing her power over him, Caroline angrily confronts Lawrence about his lie. She is even angrier on learning from Hildegarde that she informed her husband about her insinuation. When Hubert speaks to her about the necessity of retracting, she at first refuses, but, confronted with the ambiguities underlying her relation with Lawrence, she is forced to sign a statement of retraction written for her by Michael. Before leaving, she insinuates as a parting shot in her husband's absence about Emily's infidelity. Breaking down, Emily confesses the truth. Now recognizing she ignored some matters concerning Caroline's relation with her husband, Hildegarde admits defeat and prepares for divorce, but on seeing her husband crumple at these news, she takes him in her arms.

"Our children"[ edit ] Because of his son’s extravagance and his own stubbornness in disowning his daughter when she married one of his employees, Willy loses his shoe factory and his peace of mind. Shoe factory at Lynn Massachusetts, 1900s Time: 1910s. Place: Lynn, Massachusetts, USA. Text at Willy Engel has bought his son, Theodore, a partnership in a brokerage business. Although Theodore has been going out with Rosie, niece to Willy’s best friend, Stasi, his new position prompts him to start courting Harriet Hutton, daughter of a rich bank president. For three years, Willy has been holding the mortgage on the neighboring house to Richard Hellman, employee and inventor at his shoe factory, but now he wants to foreclose and leave it to Theodore. For his daughter, Hertha, he has opened a $10,000 bank account. Unaware of Willy’s plans on his house, Richard asks Hertha to marry him. She accepts, but when she informs her father of the marriage proposal, he refuses his consent because the man’s social rank is too low for her. Nonplussed, Richard takes her away.

Angry yet worried, Willy asks Theodore to give Hertha the booklet of her bank account. Over a two year period, Willy’s financial situation worsens because of a strike at his factory and his son’s extravagance in speculating and spending on himself. He is warned by Stasi about the rash speculations of his son’s partner, Vaughan Leland. “Willy, I know that he’s a crook,” Stasi declares. “He took your Theodore for a partner just to get credit with your money. Stop him now before he goes too far.” But Willy’s confidence in his son remains unshaken. To Stasi’s astonishment who expected to witness his Theodore’s marriage with Rosie, Willy announces that he is engaged to marry Harriet. Despite his difficulties, Hutton agrees to renew Willy’s mortgages and accepts his son’s marriage to his daughter provided the latter cut himself away from Leland’s dishonest dealings. Theodore meets Harriet to assure her that if she gives him more money to invest in stocks, her previous investments should be safe. She gives him $3,000 but specifies that she never intended to marry him.

A shaken Theodore calls Boston only to learn that Leland’s affairs are even worse than he thought. “Sheriffs?” he asks astonished. “Receiver sealed the books pending investigation? But where’s Leland? Gone? Gone where?” Afraid of being arrested, he takes off with Harriet’s money as Hertha returns. Knowing of her father’s troubles, she offers him the $10,000 back and proposes that Richard, who has made good on his inventions, help him out, but he refuses both offers. Unexpectedly, Richard shows up as his wife runs to hide. He gives Willy money as the first installment of the neighboring property on which he wishes to build a house, acquired without Willy knowing who the buyer was. But Richard is astonished on learning that Hertha has divulged he is also involved in acquiring her father’s factory. “You must see that I have duties to my firm to the people that put bread in our mouths’” he says to her. “You’ve betrayed them.” However, they are interrupted by Hutton, who offers Richard the following: “An hour ago I refused to foreclose and sell your firm the Engel factory. But if your offer still holds good, I’ll take it.

The factory goes to you.” When Willy asks why he has changed his mind, Hutton replies: “Your son took $3,000 of my daughter’s money tonight after he knew the police had closed up his office.” A crushed Willy gives him Richard’s $3,000, pretending that it is Theodore’s money, but is then relieved to find $3,000 enclosed in a letter left by his son. Theodore finds work in a tannery and sends back money to pay his debts while Willy returns to work as a plain shoemaker. But Richard accelerates the process of reconciliation with Willy by purchasing the tannery, paying the remaining $12,000 in debts, and sending his son back home to him. John Steinbeck[ edit ] John Steinbeck showed that the best-laid plans of mice and men easily come to nothing, 1962 Although mostly a novelist, John Steinbeck (1902-1968) contributed to the drama of the period with "Of mice and men" (1937), an adaptation of the short novel of the same name.

"Of mice and men"[ edit ] Time: 1930s. Place: California, USA. Text at ? Two migrant field workers, George and Lennie, are looking for work on a ranch. They were forced out of their previous occupation after the latter was falsely accused of attempted rape, merely for touching a woman's dress, due to his penchant of stroking soft objects. Because of Lennie's mental deficiencies, George advises him to speak as little as possible to their potential employer, a ploy which succeeds. At work, the two are confronted with Curley, the boss' son, who overly compensates for his small size with aggressive talk. His wife, Candy, has an openly flirtatious personality, in Lennie's view a figure of danger in their hope of making important money. A field hand, Slim, offers Lennie a puppy, joyfully accepted as something he can fondle. Another farmhand offers to advance money to George in support for their dream of owning land, provided he is allowed to live with them. Their agreement is threatened when Curley for no good reason attacks Lennie, who, encouraged to defend himself by George, breaks the aggressor's hand.

Nevertheless, supported by the other farmhands, they are not yet dismissed. George goes to town with them, while Lennie is left alone. Despite his cynicism, Crooks, a stable buck, hears of Lennie's dream of owning land and asks to contribute to it. Their talk is interrupted by Candy, as flirtatious as ever towards Lennie. Later, Lennie grieves on discovering he has accidentally killed his puppy through over-fondling. He meets Candy a second time. She tells him her own dream of becoming a star of the cinema. When Lennie mentions his penchant to touch, she flirtatiously allows him to stroke her hair, but then becomes very worried about his manner and his strength, so that in panic she cries out. Lennie, aware of the danger of the situation, seeks to calm her, but is unable to, until in frustration he accidentally breaks her neck. After learning of this disaster, George joins Lennie as a fugitive. They hide in the bushes as a lynch mob is formed. In despair and out of compassion, George shoots Lennie. He is soon discovered by Curley and the farmhands.

William Saroyan[ edit ] William Saroyan showed that you can have the time of your life by not adhering to society's expectations, 1940 William Saroyan (1908-1981) is known for his successful play, "The time of your life" (1939). "The time of your life"[ edit ] Time: 1939. Place: San Francisco, USA. Text at In a saloon, as he often does, a professional loafer, Joe, asks his friend, Tom, to run an errand for him, in this case buying mechanical toys. When Tom returns, he asks Kitty, a whore with whom he is in love, to go out with him. She asks him whether he has money. When he says yes, they go out together. A woman asks Joe whether he really likes to drink so much. "As much as I like to breathe," he answers. When Tom returns, he reports to Joe that Kitty is crying. Joe asks him to go buy on an European map, a gun, and bullets. When he returns, they console Kitty, in the habit of daydreaming she is an actress and her man a doctor.

"Be the wonderful doctor she dreams about and never had," Joe recommends to Tom. "Go ahead. Correct the errors of the world." When a sailor arrives to sleep with her, Tom threatens to kill him. Another customer of the saloon arrives, Krupp, a dockside policeman considering quitting his job. "We've got everything, but we always feel lousy and dissatisfied just the same," he comments. Practical for the benefit of others but not towards himself, Joe buys Kitty new clothes and the rent needed to live in a more comfortable hotel. A man who calls himself Kit Carson shows up to Joe how to use the gun. To help Tom, Joe arranges for him to obtain a job as truck-driver. When Kitty returns, she feels her gifts have arrived too late in life. A member of the vice squad, Blick, enters to check on the premises and interrogates Kitty aggressively. When Kit objects to that tone, Blick takes him out in the street and beats him up. On further interrogation, Kitty confesses that she dances burlesque, at which Blick challenges her to show him. As she starts to take off her clothes, Joe and Tom intervene.

Sensing danger, Joe pushes his friend away and gives him money, so that he and Kitty can escape safely. Joe aims his gun at Blick, but it is defective, so that he wanders to his table confused, in a daze. Soon, the owner of the bar tells him Blick has been shot, after which Kit enters with the news that he once killed a man in San Francisco in 1939. Clifford Odets showed that paradise is lost in the face of social injustice, 1937 Clifford Odets (1906-1963) penned a social drama of importance in "Paradise lost" (1935). Time: 1930s. Place: USA. Text at ? Foley canvasses votes for himself for a political position in the city, but finds only indifference in the Gordon family house. The furnace man, Pike, is very critical about the current state of society. "A person starves to death in it every day," he avers. "Looks like we walked in on a nest of Reds," an offended Foley retorts.

To everyone' surprise, Leo Gordon's son, Ben, has just married Libby, daughter to Gus, a long-time family friend. Leo's daughter, Pearl, considers this an impractical move, ironically considering her brother as "the great genius who never earned a nickel in his life." When left alone with Libby, Ben's friend, Kewpie, reminds her of the good times they once spent together. "Did I say I was ice, with Ben running races the whole summer in Europe?" she retorts. They quarrel in front of Ben till Kewpie slaps her face. Ben defends her, but Kewpie knocks him down. Meanwhile, Pearl's boy-friend, Felix, informs her he has given up trying to find a job as a violinist. "Listen, I'm a worm in the ground, and you're a worm in the ground," he avers. As a result, he abandons her to try his luck in another city. Leo and his friend and co-owner Sam receive a delegation of workers complaining about their low salaries and bad working conditions, at the end of which Sam criticizes Leo for being too sympathetic to their cause. Pike and Gus argue about politics.

"Our country's the biggest and best pig-sty in the world", Pike comments, to which the latter retorts: "I know no better place, Mr P." "I do, all picked out for me, the bottom of the ocean," he counters. Later, Gus is arrested on a false charge of harassing a woman in the subway, but is then released from jail. Ben does not succeed in making good money, but instead is reduced to selling mechanical toys in the streets. To his shame, he discovers Libby did not receive rent-money from Gus but from Kewpie. He confronts him. Kewpie offers him a chance to earn quick money, showing his gun. They leave together. Sam introduces Leo to Mr May, who advises them to buy an insurance policy on their business and then set fire to the premises. Leo is offended and orders him out, to Sam's despair. "Don't insult humanity with your ignorance," Sam cries out. Leo receives a partially understood phone call from Kewpie, whereby Julie, Ben's dying brother, guesses correctly its meaning: Ben was shot to death during a botched robbery attempt. There is no better hope in the family's future than voluntary bankruptcy.

Since Leo cannot obtain a loan, he sells Pearl's piano while Gus sells his precious stamp collection. They are told by the police to put their furniture lying on the sidewalk back inside the house because Foley and his contributors are having a block party. Feeling guilty about Ben's death, Kewpie offers money as compensation to the family, but he is and badly received. Kewpie throws the money on the floor and leaves. In Leo's view, all this trouble is a mystery. Sidney Howard[ edit ] Sidney Howard showed that immigrants know what they want but do not always get it. 1909 photograph Sidney Howard (1891-1939) wrote "They knew what they wanted" (1924). Of "they knew what they wanted", Krutch (1967) writes: "The situation here presented is one which could obviously be developed either as comedy or as trag- edy. As tragedy it might end either in suicide or death, or in some other less definitive calamity. As it is, the triumph of common sense brings it closer to comedy. But it is not quite either.

The mood of the conclusion suggests rather a sober, slightly wistful, acquiescence in the fact that life, even when it spares us fundamental catastrophe, often disappoints our rosier expectations." Also: ""They Knew What They Wanted" is in no sense a thesis play though it involves moral assumptions which might well have been argued in a thesis play only a decade before. What an opportunity is here pre- sented—and neglected by Mr. Howard—to expound a paradoxical morality, to define love, to ex plain The Case for the Unmarried Mother, and in general to "épater les bourgeois!" Mr. Howard, however, does nothing of the sort. He is not con- sciously engaged in forwarding a revolution either for its own sake or because he feels that the meaning of his play can be comprehensible only in so far as he is able to produce a revolution in the attitudes of his auditors. But he does assume that such a revolution has already taken place." He also remarks that the play runs counter to Bronson Howard's axioms of expected responses from the audience. In "Anatomy of a play" (1886), Bronson described axiom 1 thus: "Three hearts cannot beat as one.

The world is not large enough, from an artistic point of view, for three good human hearts to con tinue to exist, if two of them love a third. If one of the two hearts is a bad one, art assigns it to the hell on earth of disappointed love, but if it is good and tender and gentle, art is merciful to it, and puts it out of its misery by death." For axiom 2: "The wife who has once taken the step from purity to impurity can never reinstate herself in the world of art this side of the grave." "They knew what they wanted"[ edit ] Time: 1920s. Place: California, USA. Text at ? Having amassed a fortune for illegally selling alcoholic products during prohibition as a 60-year-old illiterate wine farmer and immigrant from Italy, Tony wishes to marry. Via a matrimonial agency, he sets up a date at a restaurant with Amy, a 20-year-old waitress, but at the last minute, too shy to speak with her, he backs out. Instead, he asks his friend and employee, Joe, to write and send her a a marriage proposal on his behalf. She accepts.

On the marriage day, Tony is very nervous about the impression he will make before his destined bride. He drinks too much wine, takes his car on his way to pick her up at the train station, and topples over a bridge, breaking both legs. When Amy reaches the farm, Joe is there to welcome her. He is stunned on discovering that Tony, afraid of rejection because of his physical appearance, sent her a photograph of himself. When Tony is carried in from the ambulance, he cries out Amy's name but is swiftly carried off to his bedroom for further medical treatment. In terrible surmise, Amy asks Joe: "Who- who is that old guy?" Joe is forced to admit that the old guy is her future husband. Her first thought is to run away, but, after further consideration and liking the looks of the place, she decides to stay and marry him. Later that evening, with Tony ailing in bed and facing a 6-month period of convalescence, Joe mentions his desire to return to his former life as a migrant worker. Tony begs him to remain, mostly to manage the vineyard in his place. Amy pretends to be indifferent, but breaks down and rushes out when Joe prepares to leave.

He follows her and they make love on Tony's wedding night. Three months later, Tony is well on his way to recovery, so that Joe reiterates his desire to go. However, his progress is stopped by the news that Amy is pregnant with his child. He proposes that they marry and abandon Joe. Unwillingly, she prepares to accompany him, but, before going, informs Tony that she is pregnant. Frightened by his anger, she moves back, but then he collapses at her feet and begs her to say. She hesitates about what to do, disbelieving he can ever love her again or the baby, but then accepts his offer as Joe picks up his knapsack to head elsewhere Time: 1917. Place: Near Asheville, North Carolina, USA. Text at ? A farmer, Rufe Cagle, would like to marry Emmy Todd but she is undecided about whether to marry him or else the region's sheriff, Jim Weeks. When Rufe says he must have her answer because he must soon go away, she promises to do so after sun-down. Sheriff Weeks offers Rufe's mother $800 for her farm, but she refuses to sell.

He announces that according to a government decree, Rufe and Emmy's brother, Bud, must register their name and address. Widow Cagle suggests he should refuse. "Ye got a gun, ain't ye?" she asks her son rhetorically. "That's as much as the law's got." She specifies that they owe the governement nothing, all the more so since an agent, Zeb Turner, shot her husband to death for resisting arrest while illegally making corn whiskey. Alone with Emmy and aware that his rival is likely to be called up, Jim asks her to marry him. Instead she announces to everyone that she accepts Rufe's offer. Thinking that lets her son off, Mrs Cagle is overjoyed, but then he announces having registered that very morning. After receiving news he is drafted, though not Bud because of weak-mindedness, he tells her he is going of his own free will. "Then it 'tain't fer me to say no more," she answers. Emmy is surprised she declines to kiss him goodbye.

"Whut's the use o' sech foolishness?" she answers, but when Emmy follows him out, she moves her hand lovingly over Rufe's hoe and the corn-cob pipe drops from her mouth. Several months later, during a blizzzard, an army deserter shows up at Mrs Cagle's house. Unknown to her, it is Zeb Turner's son, Zeb junior. Having followed his snow-tracks up to her house, Sheriff Weeks calls out to her, but, hating any form of law, she decides to hide the stranger, who succeeds in avoiding detection. Unable to read, Mrs Cagle asks Emmy to read a letter delivered to her from the government, informing them that Rufe died in action. "It means the law's got my boy same as his pap," Mrs Cagle declares. Seeing her bravely put up with pain when he thought his own mother would be unable to, the stranger abandons the thought of desertion, intending to return to his army post. But before he has a chance to, the sheriff returns with the news that the stranger's name is Zeb junior.

Instead of delivering the son of her husband's killer to the law, she hides him a second time after seeming to hear her dead son's voice stating that as long as there is hate there will be feuds. Before the sheriff's very nose, Zeb leaves the house disguised in Bud's coat and cap. After the sheriff discovers the trick, he moves to arrest her, but, reminded of her grief, changes his mind. "I heared you, Rufe," Mrs Cagle calls aloud when everyone has gone. "I never knowed nothin' about lovin' anything but ye till ye showed me hit's lovin' them all that counts." The dawn's light pours in as she opens the door to look out. Trouble starts when a detour sign prevents a garage owner from doing business Time: 1920s. Place: Northport, New York, USA Text at Kate, a schoolteacher during the school year, a clerk at a store during summertime, and her mother, Helen, have been saving money for many years so that she can attend an art school in New York. "The thing I wanted to do you're going to do," Helen assures her.

However, the father, Steve, considers he needs more land to make truck farming profitable and intends to take away her summer-money. Their neighbor, Tom, has opened an oil station and garage, but learns too late a detour sign is put up on the road leading up to it because of a need for repairs. He would like to marry Kate, but she does not encourage his advances. To get her faster to New York, Helen sells the family bed. Steve is outraged and wants to block the sale until learning the generous amount it went for. In financial trouble, Tom is willing to sell his land to him. Steve wants to accept but has no money. He learns that with the sale of the bed, Kate is on her way to art school. "That's nonsense," he declares. "I made my mind up to it, whether I think or I don't, over ten years ago," counters Helen. "It's just as much a part of my life- what I've planned she's goin' to do and be- as the work I do is, or this old dress that I've worn and worn and worn until I wouldn't know myself in any other.

I couldn't any more live without the hope of what's coming to her than I could live without drink or food." Frustrated at not being able to realize his own dream, he puts his hands on all their savings and offers them to Tom. "Fifteen hundred cash and a mortgage for the balance!" he cries exulting. But Helen refuses to let him take the money. "Take it, then," he counters. "But remember this: if you do take it, and if she goes against my will, you go with her." However, seeing her in a red dress of his daughter's makes him reminisce of another red dress from long ago, so that he loses heart, though still angrily refusing to let Kate go. In anger, Helen throws in the stove-fire all of her cherished letters and photographs. Steve encounters a famous painter from New York, here to judge the value of Kate's art-work as his wife promised to Helen he would. He looks doubtfully at it, at which Kate cries out in anguish. Stunned at the sound of her cry, Steve quickly intervenes. "I was speakin' to this gentleman here about your picture," he assures.

"He was sayin' it was pretty good, real good he seemed to think it was, for- for a girl that hadn't had much teachin'- I - I got to see if my stock's all fixed for the night. He liked that picture real well; he'11 tell you so himself, if you ask him." Nevertheless, the professional critic can only see "the conventional schoolgirl water color". After the road reopens as a result of citizen complaints, Tom's garage is attached. Disillusioned about her prospects, Kate hands the money over to her father so that he can buy the land from Tom and re-obtain the garage. An even more disillusioned Helen hears Steve offer her egg-money so that she can start saving again for Kate's unborn daughter. His coarse laughter does not faze her as she looks to the future, her heart still swelling with hope. Augustus Thomas[ edit ] Augustus Thomas described the strange legal problems arising from unconscious wishes, 1916 "The witching hour" (1917) is a striking play written by Augustus Thomas (1857-1934).

Clark (1915) remarks: ""The Witching Hour" is thoroughly American in spirit: the good and bad qualities of American drama are easily distinguished from page to page. Greneralizations in matters theatrical nowadays are especially fallible, yet it will not be amiss to say that the drama in the United States is as a rule conventional, over-sentimental, puritanical in that it rarely dares go to the root of life and comments on it with fearless and outspoken sincerity ; it is, on the other hand, " live," moving, interesting as a transcript of the everyday externals of life. The dialogue is usually good, idiomatic, and clever, although it rarely reveals character. It is nearly always violent, extreme: melodrama and farce seem to be the favorite forms, and happy endings are practically indispensable. The American dramatist is a sentimentalist, although he seldom sentimentalizes over the deepest things in life — as a Frenchrnan does — love-scenes are usually short and snappy, an American dislikes showing his feelings — while little children, old mothers, and pals in crooked deals supply more sentimental material than half a dozen love-affairs to a Frenchman or a deserted mistress to Schuitzler.

Notice the first love-scene in "The witching hour" : the actual proposal and its casual announcement." "The witching hour"[ edit ] Text at When Alice learns that Clay and her daughter, Viola, are engaged to be married, she worries about its outcome because of his card-playing habits, although her present fortune is the result of the success enjoyed in such games by her brother, Jack, a professional gambler. Aware of Clay's love of Viola, Frank, assistant district attorney, asks Jack whether he agrees to his marrying her, but he does not. Although favorable to his interests, Jack takes a moral stance in Frank's turning a blind eye on his illegal activity as well as his involvement in the unresolved murder of a recent governor-elect, Scovill. Before their poker-game, a drunken gambler, Tom, teases Clay when he turns away from his scarf-pin. As he continues to harass him, Clay takes up a paper-knife from a table and strikes wildly at him. The knife-thrust kills him. Clay is arrested, placed on trial, and condemned to die for murder. The defense attorney appeals to the supreme court to have the trial remanded due to a tactical error by the presiding judge.

Clay's mother, Helen, along with Viola make a personal appeal to one of the supreme court judges, Prentice. Their main defense is that Clay was the victim of an hereditary fear of a cat's-eye jewel contained in the scarf-pin, since she has the same fear as did her mother. Judge Prentice agrees that her mother's letter may constitute new evidence in the case, all the more so in that he once loved Clay's grandmother. The trial is remanded. While the jury deliberates, Jack, following Judge Prentice's advice, convinces a newspaper reporter to print an article suggesting the involvement of Frank, the prosecuting attorney in the Clay case, in Scovill's murder. Although the jury had no access to the newspaper article, Clay is acquitted as a result of telepathic communication, according to Jack and Judge Prentice. Incensed, Frank bursts in the room with a gun with the intent to kill Jack but then freezes when Jack and Judge Prentice mentally command him to do so. Frank flees to escape the murder charge but his hiding place is discovered. Instead of turning him over to the police, Jack asks Clay to hand him a note in which he offers to help him.

"Long before Scovill was killed, I thought he deserved killing," explains Jack, "and I thought it could be done just as it was done." When Frank comes over, Jack and Helen drive him across state-lines to facilitate his escape. Gertrude E Jennings[ edit ] A comedy of note includes "Poached eggs and pearls" (1916) by Gertrude E Jennings (1857-1958), born in the USA and immigrating in England, also author of two interesting one-act social plays set in rest homes: "Acid drops" (1914) and "The rest cure" (1914). "Poached eggs and pearls"[ edit ] Pearls are buried underneath the eggs when titled women work in a canteen during World War I Time: 1910s. Place: London, England. Text at During World War I, Lady Clara and Lady Mabel have volunteered for canteen work under the supervision of the duchess of Port Arthur.

While serving tables and following rules limiting conversations with customers, Clara stands aloof towards Jimmie, a soldier mechanic who, just to be near her, orders more food than he can eat, often poached eggs because they take the longest to prepare. But to Mabel, she admits she likes him more and more. She is frightened when he announces he will soon go to the front lines, yet refuses to consider marrying him. As canteen orders multiply, a clumsy volunteer, Emily, confides in Clara concerning her nephew's desire of marrying above his social station to a titled canteen volunteer whose name she does not know. Against the rules, Jimmie surreptiously enters the pantry where Clara works alone. He presses her even more ardently for her to marry him. If they are caught, she is worried that she will be sent to sew pyjamas, a type of work she particularly detests. Mabel warns her in time of the approach of Lady Violet, jealous of any who attract the men. Anxious that the hidden Jimmie may be discovered, Clara resists going over to clear the tables, but is nevertheless forced to by the duchess.

Re-entering, Jimmie sneaks up from behind, calls out Clara's name, and kisses Violet by mistake. An outraged Violet threatens to tell the duchess about this unseemly behavior. Jimmie begs her not to. They are interrupted by the arrival of Emily, surprised to find her nephew there, who assumes his love is Violet and tries to convince him not to marry above his station. Violet convinces her otherwise. "I'm happy to say that this young man is absolutely nothing to do with me," she says. "I was amazed to find him in the pantry, and I do not come to the canteen to flirt with Tommies." Emily confronts her. "There's no reason to insult my dear boy because he doesn't care for you," she says. "After all, he's one of our gallant gentlemen. He's been out to the front and been wounded and risked his life for England with the rest of our men, and that's more than you have done.

And I think you ought to respect them all, however humble, and not sneer at them, our dear brave gallant soldiers!" They are interrupted by the duchess, outraged after being told by Violet of the love-intrigue. Emily defends the two. "Oh, but, duchess, may I tell you?" she asks. "This is my nephew- the dearest boy. I do want him to be happy, and I like Lady Clara so much. She is so sweet and washes up so well. And I know I'm only a silly old thing, and I've dropped the china and spilt the tea and made the cocoa wrong, but I do want them to be happy, and I've got money, thanks to my dear father, and they shall have it now, and not wait till I'm gone, and, oh, duchess, do be kind to my dear Jimmie." Thanks to this appeal, the duchess at last relents. Trouble starts when Elwood speaks to a giant rabbit no one else can see Time: 1940s. Place: New York City, USA. Text at ?

While Veta and her daughter, Myrtle, entertain at their home, Elwood P. Dowd unexpectedly shows up and mingles among the guests. Veta quickly removes him, worried that her brother will once more introduce her guests to Harvey, a pooka or spirit in the shape of a human-sized rabbit. On the phone, Elwood accepts a subscription to a club for himself and Harvey. Tired of her brother's interference in her social life, a distraught Veta goes to Dr Chumley's sanitarium to have him committed. She explains to his assistant, Dr Lyman Sanderson, that her brother is in the habit of frequenting taverns and invites all sorts of strangers to their house. She is so harassed that she admits she once saw Harvey herself. Her excited state prompts the doctor to misinterpret what she is saying and to lock her up in the institution for her own good. He calls in Elwood and asks him to sign the commitment papers for his sister, but he suggests she should do that herself. Instead, he invites Lyman and the head nurse to a bar that very evening.

When Dr William Chumley arrives, he is puzzled on discovering a coat and a hat with two holes cut in its crown and orders the items removed. As Elwood returns to retrieve Harvey's coat and hat, he meets William's wife, who takes a message on his behalf for Harvey. When William returns and receives his wife's message, he recognizes Lyman's mistake and fires him. Confident that her uncle will be institutionalized, Myrtle begins planning to sell the house. Elwood returns home while no one is there and takes up a parcel containing an oil painting of himself and Harvey. He hangs it up on the wall and then leaves to look for Harvey. Though William shows up to explain his subordinate's mistake, Veta is determined to sue him. She shrieks on discovering the painting. When Elwood calls to ask whether Harvey has returned, Veta is able to guess which bar he is calling from and William goes off to bring him back to his institution. Elwood shows up at the sanitarium to pick up Lyman and the nurse for their evening drink. On being asked what happened to William, he says the doctor unexpectedly left him at the bar while ordering more drinks for the two of them and Harvey.

Lyman decides to hold Elwood. Later, William returns, much shaken, with the impression of being followed. On seeing Lyman, he re-hires him. After some pleasant chatting, Elwood wants to leave, but Veta, Myrtle, and the family lawyer think it best he should stay. "An element of conflict in any discussion is a good thing," comments Elwood serenely. Alone with William, Elwood explains his tranquil life with Harvey, mostly consisting of meeting friends in bars. "Harvey can stop clocks," he points out. To a stressed-out doctor the prospect seems appealing and so to keep the rabbit to himself, he decides to inject Elwood with a drug liable to shock him back to reality. At first Elwood refuses, but when Veta insists, he submits. While the doctor is preparing the administration, a cab driver shows up to ask for his money, but neither Veta or Myrtle find any. They ask Elwood for it, who finds some and then invites him and his brother to dinner over at his house. The driver is impressed and suggests that the man might not be so pleasant after the injection.

Feeling guilty over committing her brother, Veta changes her mind and interrupts the proposed injection to take Elwood home. She is puzzled on looking at her purse to find money there.

Question: Which American playwright 1897-1975 said 'The best part of married life is the fights, the rest is merely so-so'?
Answer: THORNTON WILDER