Drama Books

SCENE— A shabby front room in a shotgun house. A door covered by dingy portieres upstage C. Small panel window in side Wall L. Plain centre table with chairs drawn up about it. Gaudy calendars on wall. Battered piano against wall R. Kerosene lamp with reflector against wall on either side of room. At rise of curtain NUNKIE is at piano playing…. Others at table with small stacks of chips before each... more...

Scene: A plantation of thin young trees, in a misty and rainy twilight; some woodland blossom showing the patches on the earth between the stems. The Stranger is discovered, a cloaked figure with a pointed hood. His costume might belong to modern or any other time, and the conical hood is so drawn over the head that little can be seen of the face. A distant voice, a woman's, is heard,... more...

ACT THE FIRST. SCENE I.BATTLEMENTS, WITH A SEA PROSPECT. Enter Zanga. Zan.Whether first nature, or long want of peace,Has wrought my mind to this, I cannot tell;But horrors now are not displeasing to me:[thunder.I like this rocking of the battlements.Rage on, ye winds; burst, clouds; and, waters, roar!You bear a just resemblance of my fortune,And suit the gloomy habit of my soul.Enter... more...

ACT I SCENE I The curtain rises on the BARTHWICK'S dining-room, large,modern, and well furnished; the window curtains drawn.Electric light is burning. On the large round dining-table isset out a tray with whisky, a syphon, and a silvercigarette-box. It is past midnight. A fumbling is heard outside the door. It is opened suddenly;JACK BARTHWICK seems to fall into the room. He stands holdingby the... more...

the battle of the Sea of Japan another turning-point in the brief course of recorded human history has been reached. Whatever the outcome of the negotiations for peace, one thing is sure: for better, for worse, and whether we will or no, the West must know the East, and the East must know the West. With that knowledge will inevitably come an interchange of potent influences, of influences that will... more...

Where Heartbreak House Stands Heartbreak House is not merely the name of the play which follows this preface. It is cultured, leisured Europe before the war. When the play was begun not a shot had been fired; and only the professional diplomatists and the very few amateurs whose hobby is foreign policy even knew that the guns were loaded. A Russian playwright, Tchekov, had produced four fascinating... more...

SCENE I. A high, rocky shore of the lake of Lucerne opposite Schwytz.The lake makes a bend into the land; a hut stands at a shortdistance from the shore; the fisher boy is rowing about in hisboat. Beyond the lake are seen the green meadows, the hamlets,and arms of Schwytz, lying in the clear sunshine. On the leftare observed the peaks of the Hacken, surrounded with clouds; tothe right, and in the... more...

Exception has been taken to the title of this seeming tomfoolery on the ground that the Catherine it represents is not Great Catherine, but the Catherine whose gallantries provide some of the lightest pages of modern history. Great Catherine, it is said, was the Catherine whose diplomacy, whose campaigns and conquests, whose plans of Liberal reform, whose correspondence with Grimm and Voltaire enabled... more...

ACT I It is after dinner on a January night, in the library in Lady Britomart Undershaft's house in Wilton Crescent. A large and comfortable settee is in the middle of the room, upholstered in dark leather. A person sitting on it [it is vacant at present] would have, on his right, Lady Britomart's writing table, with the lady herself busy at it; a smaller writing table behind him on his left;... more...

ACT 1 (SCENE—The sitting-room at Rosmersholm; a spacious room, comfortably furnished in old-fashioned style. In the foreground, against the right-hand wall, is a stove decorated with sprigs of fresh birch and wild flowers. Farther back, a door. In the back wall folding doors leading into the entrance hall. In the left-hand wall a window, in front of which is a stand filled with flowers and plants.... more...