Drama Books

ACT I. SCENE I.—OCTAVE, SILVESTRE. Oct. Ah! what sad news for one in love! What a hard fate to be reduced to! So, Silvestre, you have just heard at the harbour that my father is coming back? Sil. Yes. Oct. That he returns this very morning? Sil. This very morning. Oct. With the intention of marrying me? Sil. Of marrying you. Oct. To a daughter of Mr. Géronte? Sil. Of Mr. Géronte. Oct. And that this... more...

FIRST ACT SCENE Morning-room in Algernon’s flat in Half-Moon Street.  The room is luxuriously and artistically furnished.  The sound of a piano is heard in the adjoining room. [Lane is arranging afternoon tea on the table, and after the music has ceased, Algernon enters.] Algernon.  Did you hear what I was playing, Lane? Lane.  I didn’t think it polite to listen, sir. Algernon.  I’m sorry... more...

ACT I. SCENE I.——ARGAN (sitting at a table, adding up his apothecary's bill with counters). Arg. Three and two make five, and five make ten, and ten make twenty. "Item, on the 24th, a small, insinuative clyster, preparative and gentle, to soften, moisten, and refresh the bowels of Mr. Argan." What I like about Mr. Fleurant, my apothecary, is that his bills are always civil. "The... more...

ACT I SCENE I Night, in the garden of NAAMAN at Damascus. At the left, on a slightly raised terrace, the palace, with softly gleaming lights and music coming from the open latticed windows. The garden is full of oleanders, roses, pomegranates, abundance of crimson flowers; the air is heavy with their fragrance: a fountain at the right is plashing gently: behind it is an arbour covered with vines. Near... more...

SCENE: A large room with a door at the back and another at the side opening to an inner room. A desk and a chair in the middle. An hour-glass on a bracket near the door. A creepy stool near it. Some benches. The WISE MAN sitting at his desk. WISE MAN [turning over the pages of a book]. Where is that passage I am to explain to my pupils to-day? Here it is, and the book says that it was written by a... more...

SCENE I SCENE—The firemen's forecastle of a transatlantic liner an hour after sailing from New York for the voyage across. Tiers of narrow, steel bunks, three deep, on all sides. An entrance in rear. Benches on the floor before the bunks. The room is crowded with men, shouting, cursing, laughing, singing—a confused, inchoate uproar swelling into a sort of unity, a meaning—the bewildered,... more...

CHAPTER I EARLY CHURCH DRAMA ON THE CONTINENT The old Classical Drama of Greece and Rome died, surfeited with horror and uncleanness. Centuries rolled by, and then, when the Old Drama was no more remembered save by the scholarly few, there was born into the world the New Drama. By a curious circumstance its nurse was the same Christian Church that had thrust its predecessor into the grave. A man may... more...

MRS. MERCY WARREN (1728-1814) Most of the literature—orations as well as broadsides—created in America under the heat of the Revolution, was of a strictly satirical character. Most of the Revolutionary ballads sung at the time were bitter with hatred against the Loyalist. When the conflict actually was in progress, the theatres that regaled the Colonists were closed, and an order from the... more...

REMARKS. This tragedy has been so rapturously applauded on the stage, and so severely criticised in the closet, that it is a task of peculiar difficulty to speak either of its beauties or its defects, with any degree of certainty. To conciliate both the auditor and the reader, both the favourable and the unfavourable critic, the "Grecian Daughter" demands a set of Remarks for each side of the... more...

ACT I SCENE I Front room on ground floor at 126 Redcliffe Gardens. An apartment furnished richly but in an old-fashioned way. Fine pictures. Large furniture. Sofa near centre. General air of neglect and dustiness. Carpet half-laid. Trunks and bags lying about in corners, some opened. Men's wearing apparel exposed. Mantelpiece, R., in disorder. At back double doors (ajar) leading to another room.... more...