Drama Books

INTRODUCTION This is the first of the series of three Comedies—'The Acharnians,' 'Peace' and 'Lysistrata'—produced at intervals of years, the sixth, tenth and twenty-first of the Peloponnesian War, and impressing on the Athenian people the miseries and disasters due to it and to the scoundrels who by their selfish and reckless policy had provoked it, the consequent... more...

INTRODUCTION* Exactly a year after the production of Lady Inger of Ostrat—that is to say on the "Foundation Day" of the Bergen Theatre, January 2, 1866—The Feast at Solhoug was produced. The poet himself has written its history in full in the Preface to the second edition. The only comment that need be made upon his rejoinder to his critics has been made, with perfect fairness as it seems... more...

AUGUSTUS DOES HIS BIT The Mayor's parlor in the Town Hall of Little Pifflington. Lord Augustus Highcastle, a distinguished member of the governing class, in the uniform of a colonel, and very well preserved at forty-five, is comfortably seated at a writing-table with his heels on it, reading The Morning Post. The door faces him, a little to his left, at the other side of the room. The window is... more...

PART I. SCENE.—A Court of Justice. Usher, Clerk of the Court, Mr. Hungary, Q.C., and others.  Mr. La-di-da, the prisoner, not in the dock, but seated in a chair before it.  [Enter Mr. Justice Nupkins. Usher.  Silence!—silence! Mr. Justice Nupkins.  Prisoner at the bar, you have been found guilty by a jury, after a very long and careful consideration of your remarkable and strange case, of a... more...

INTRODUCTION THE greatest of English dramatists except Shakespeare, the first literary dictator and poet-laureate, a writer of verse, prose, satire, and criticism who most potently of all the men of his time affected the subsequent course of English letters: such was Ben Jonson, and as such his strong personality assumes an interest to us almost unparalleled, at least in his age. Ben Jonson came of the... more...

ACT I Scene: A room in the King's house at Burren.Large window at back with deep window seat.Doors right and left. A small table and somechairs. Dall Glic: (Coming in with tray, which he putson table. Goes back to door.) You can come in,King. There is no one here. King: (Coming in.) That's very good. I wasin dread the Queen might be in it. Dall Glic: It is a good thought I had bringingit in... more...

ACT I. SCENE I.——VALÈRE, ÉLISE. Val. What, dear Élise! you grow sad after having given me such dear tokens of your love; and I see you sigh in the midst of my joy! Can you regret having made me happy? and do you repent of the engagement which my love has forced from you? Eli. No, Valère, I do not regret what I do for you; I feel carried on by too delightful a power, and I do not even wish that... more...

SCENE: A farmyard, two slaves busy beside a dungheap; afterwards, in Olympus. FIRST SERVANT Quick, quick, bring the dung-beetle his cake. SECOND SERVANT Coming, coming. FIRST SERVANT Give it to him, and may it kill him! SECOND SERVANT May he never eat a better. FIRST SERVANT Now give him this other one kneaded up with ass's dung. SECOND SERVANT There! I've done that too. FIRST SERVANT And... more...

ACT I Autumn. A peasant's hut, with a small room partitioned off. Akulína sits spinning; Martha the housewife is kneading bread; little Paráshka is rocking a cradle. MARTHA. Oh dear, my heart feels heavy! I know it means trouble; there's nothing to keep him there. It will again be like the other day, when he went to town to sell the firewood and drank nearly half of it. And he blames me... more...

SCENE: Judge Dunfumy's Court. PERSONS: Judge Dunfumy, Officer Simpson and another, Jemima               Flapcakes, Cliff Mullins, John Barnes, two lawyers,               a clerk, a pretty girl and her escort. SETTING: Usual court-room arrangement, except that there is a               large red arrow pointing off-stage left,... more...