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Dramatic Reading. Stephen Vincent Benét. There are three principal speaking parts, plus a chorus which speaks
and sings. Though this is technically an epic poem, it is actually
a highly dramatic work with a quality of excitement unrivalled by
many plays. The poem begins with John Brown's attack on Harper's
Ferry and goes on through the Civil War, telling much of it from
the points of view of Jack Ellyat, a Northern soldier, and Clay Wingate,
a Southern soldier. The families and backgrounds of both men are
woven into the action of the poem, as are their romances. Play. Henrik Ibsen, in a new
version by Nicholas Wright In Ibsen's penultimate play, written in his late sixties, a former 'pillar of the community' has been in voluntary seclusion in an upstairs room since enduring a prison sentence for embezzlement. His wife, her twin sister, his son and even Borkman himself are all entrapped in the suffocating atmosphere of his claustrophobic household ... Period 1890s Drama. 4 Acts: Henrik Ibsen, translated by Michael Meyer. In late-nineteenth-century Oslo, Borkman, since his release from
prison for large scale fraud, has spent the past eight years proudly
imagining that his financial genius will again be recognized and
he will be grandly reinstated in the banking business. He lives with
his long suffering, silent wife and son, Erhart, in the house of
his wife's rich twin sister, Ella, who has loved him for years. Borkman
credits himself for her fortune; due to his business machinations,
she benefited while thousands lost fortunes, but she refuses to forgive
him in his ruthless quest for power. Ella, who has only months to
live, offers to leave her fortune to Erhart, while Borkman wants
his son to help him resume working; his mother wants him to stay,
but the boy rejects them all, wanting his freedom he leaves to get
married. For the first time in years, the self-deluding Borkman leaves
the house to go to the wild mountains, which he loves for their hidden,
but unexploited, fortune but the cold air kills him. The twin sisters
join hands, united over the body of the man they both once loved. Comedy. Norman Krasna. 7 men, 3 women. Interior John Lawrence, who has been overseas for three years, is welcomed
home by the charming Mary McKinley. These two are and have been in
love with each other. John's life has been saved while he is overseas
by his buddy, Fred Taylor. Fred returned home a year before John
and John brings him. what should, be a pleasant surprise - news that
he has married Lily, an English girl Fred had fallen in love with
and who could not hope to get to America for years unless as the
wife of a G.I. John therefore marries her and plans to deliver her
to Fred John hopes to get a quick divorce from Lily, and marry Mary.
Mary and her family have, of course, no notion what has happened,
and John is up against it when Mary and her family insist upon an
immediate wedding. Matters are not helped when it is learned that
Fred has, meantime, not only married but is an expectant father.
John and Fred get in touch with a former officer of their acquaintance
and have him pretend to call John for special extra service for six
weeks out West: This plan also falls through and, in despair, Mary
and her family agree that John has lost interest in his fiancée.
Things look hopeless until it turns out that Lily was actually married
to the same officer whom the boys have pursuaded to order John back
to duty. That officer had sent word to Lily of his
"unfortunate death2. The game is up but all ends happily. Kathleen Betsko Yale : Comedy 2M 3F Interior set Having married an American serviceman during his wartime stint in
England, Iris has looked forward to coming to the United States -
to the glittering, glamorous world she has seen depicted in Hollywood
movies. But her new home turns out to be a grimy coal mining town
in Pennsylvania where life is dull and arduous. The play is both
a revealing study of the men who labour in the mines and a poignant
statement about the strong bonds of sisterhood which exist between
the women who share their lives, and the action of the play moves
inexorably and powerfully through a series of crises - some hilarious,
some deeply stirring - which brings Iris both the understanding she
needs to comprehend her fate, and also the strength to break away
and seek a better life for herself and her infant daughter. Play. Mary Mercier. 2 men, 3 women, 1 boy, 1 girl. Interior. As George Oppenheimer comments: "Miss Mercier has taken the theme
of lack of communication and understanding between the generations,
but this time she has brought freshness and {a natural comic flair
to her story. Her scene is a home in a small town on Long Island.
In it live a schoolteacher, her 16-year-old son of a broken marriage
and her brother who, at the outset, seems an ignorant and ordinary
man with only his affection for the boy to redeem him. John, the
son, is typical of today's disturbed youth - restless, rebellious,
sensitive, something of a kook. His mother and uncle are fearful
that he will become a replica of his father, an unsuccessful painter.
When John wants to drop out of school and become a poet, their fears
are more than ever confirmed. Yet it is the seemingly insensitive
uncle rather than the intelligent mother who recognizes that there
is a spark in the boy and who encourages him." And it is from this
deepening chord of understanding with his uncle that the boy draws
not only the strength to break away but the determination not to
misuse his opportunity - and, ultimately, the maturity to accept
the sudden, tragic twist of fate which, in the final moments of the
play, destroys the dreams his newfound hopes have generated. Comedy. Quincy Long. 6 men, 3 women. Interior. The news that a local evangelist has been murdered throws The
Vindicator into the crisis it's been putting off for years.
Jack, the city editor, grapples with the secrets of his dubious
parentage, and manages to alienate Janet, his ace staffer, in the
process. JJ, the cub reporter, stumbles in and out of competence,
while Pepper, JJ's nubile girlfriend, bypasses competence altogether
and breaks into print - profoundly irritating the veteran Hump,
who proceeds to drink himself out of a job. Carl, the minister's
son (and self-proclaimed patricide), can't get anybody to believe
that he killed his father (because he didn't) so he shifts focus
and proposes to Jack's oddball mother, who, as it happens, orchestrated
the murder as a boon for her son, who is trying to get the goods
on Tucci, his arch enemy and long-lost brother. All very bizarre
- but, in the end, evil is punished, good is rewarded, Mom expires,
and the boys (finally) grow up. |