Drama Books

PALACE OF THE KREMLIN (FEBRUARY 20th, A.D. 1598) PRINCE SHUISKY and VOROTINSKY VOROTINSKY. To keep the city's peace, that is the taskEntrusted to us twain, but you forsoothHave little need to watch; Moscow is empty;The people to the Monastery have flockedAfter the patriarch. What thinkest thou?How will this trouble end? SHUISKY. How will it end?That is not hard to tell. A little moreThe multitude... more...

ACT I [JULIA PATTERSON'S apartments in a model tenement on the lower East Side. The scene shows the living-room, furnished very plainly, but in the newest taste; "arts and crafts" furniture, portraits of Morris and Ruskin on the walls; a centre table, a couple of easy-chairs, a divan and many book-shelves. The entrance from the outer hall is at centre; entrance to the other rooms right and... more...

LECTURE I THE SUBSTANCE OF SHAKESPEAREAN TRAGEDY The question we are to consider in this lecture may be stated in a variety of ways. We may put it thus: What is the substance of a Shakespearean tragedy, taken in abstraction both from its form and from the differences in point of substance between one tragedy and another? Or thus: What is the nature of the tragic aspect of life as represented by... more...

MEMORANDUM The Sacred Legends touched by this Trilogy would be familiar, in outline, to the Auditors: e. g.: The woes of the House of Atreus: the foundation of them laid by Atreus when, to take vengeance on his brother Thyestes, he served up to him at a banquet the flesh of his own sons; His grandsons were Agamemnon and Menelaus: Menelaus' wife, Helen, was stolen by a guest, Paris of Troy, which... more...

Dramatis Personae Caesar . . . . . . . Ruler of the State. Francos . . . . . . Governor General of a Province. Quezox  . . . . . . Resident Delegate from the Province.                             Page. Scene:   Throne Room at the Capitol Caesar:   Most noble Francos, I greet thee heartily. A function truly noble falls within thy grasp; And thou wilt with it deal as only... more...

THE TURN OF THE ROAD. Mrs. Granahan.Is that the whole of them now Ellen?Ellen.Yes that's all now but one.She goes across to grandfather and lifts the plate.Have you finished granda?Grandfather.Yes dearie I have done.He pauses and fumbles for his pipe, &c.Is'nt that a fiddle I'm hearing?Ellen.Yes. Robbie's playing the fiddle in the low room. Mrs. Granahan.Arranging plates on... more...

PREFACE Believing plays to be solely for the stage, I have never before allowed any of mine to be printed until they had first faced from a stage the judgment of an audience, to see if they were entitled to be called plays at all. A successful production also has been sometimes a moral support to me when some critic has said, as for instance of "A Night at an Inn," that though it reads passably... 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...

Actus Primus. Scena Prima. Enter Dinant, a[n]d Cleremont. Din. Disswade me not. Clere. It will breed a brawl. Din. I care not, I wear a Sword. Cler. And wear discretion with it,Or cast it off, let that direct your arm,'Tis madness else, not valour, and more baseThan to receive a wrong. Din. Why would you have meSit down with a disgrace, and thank the doer?We are not Stoicks, and that passive... more...

THE FIRST ACT At Baden, near Vienna, in 1830. The drawing-room of the villa occupied by Maria Louisa. The walls are painted al fresco in bright colors. The frieze is decorated with a design of sphinxes. At the back, between two other windows, a window reaching to the ground and forming the entrance from the garden. Beyond, the balustrade of the terrace leading into the garden; a glimpse of lindens and... more...