Chapter 20

COPHETUA: In which King Cophetua justifies to his court and councillors his marriage to the beggar maid.

Sidgwick and Jackson; Houghton Mifflin.

THE STORM: An intense but quiet tragedy of a woman who waits while men search for her husband, lost in a great storm in the hills.

In _Four Poetic Plays_, Houghtou Mifflin; _Pawns_, Sidgwick and Jackson.

THE GOD or QUIETNESS: The zest of war draws away all the notable worshipers of the god of quietness, and an angry war-lord slays the god himself.

_Ibid._

X-O: A NIGHT OF THE TROJAN WAR: Trojans and Greeks, lovers of poetry, fellowship, and justice, carry on ruthless slaughter, and by irreparable losses strike a balance of exact advantage to either side.

_Ibid._

+Lord Dunsany+

THE GODS OF THE MOUNTAIN: Of seven beggars who wear pieces of green silk beneath their rags, and by brilliant devices of Agmar, their leader, contrive to be taken for the gods of the mountain disguised as beggars--until the real gods leave their thrones at Manna.

In _Five Plays_, Richards, London; Little, Brown.

KING ARGFMENES AND THE UNKNOWN WABBIOR: A slave, born a king, finds an old bronze sword buried in the ground he is tilling, and henceforward has less interest in the bones of the king's dog, who is dying.

_Ibid._

THE GOLDEN DOOM: A child's scrawl on the palace pavements furnishes the text for the soothsayers' prophecy of disaster.

_Ibid._

THE LOST SILK HAT: Of the embarrassment of a rejected suitor who, in his agitation, has left his hat in the lady's drawing-room and dislikes the idea of returning for it.

_Ibid._

THE QUEEN'S ENEMIES: They are invited to a feast of reconciliation in the great banquet room below the level of the river.

In _Plays of Gods and Men._ Unwin, London; J.W. Luce, Boston.

A NIGHT AT AN INN: A commonplace ancient plot is filled anew with dramatic terror and a sense of mystery.

_Ibid._

+Edith M.O. Ellis (Mrs. Havelock Ellis)+

THE SUBJECTION OF KEZIA: Joe Pengilly, a Cornish villager, is finally convinced that strong measures toward her subjection are alone capable of keeping his wife's love, and buys a stout cane. We learn how he fared in carrying these measures out.

In _Love in Danger_, Houghton Mifflin.

+St. John Ervine+

FOUR IRISH PLAYS:

MIXED MARRIAGE: A tragedy of the violent hatreds of Ulster.

Maunsell.

THE ORANGEMAN: A comic study of the petty madness of the same hatreds.

Maunsell.

THE CRITICS: Dramatic critics furiously condemn a play at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Gradually we discover the idea of the play through their abuse, and at last we recognize it.

Maunsell.

JANE CLEGG: A strong and clear-sighted, honest woman has to deal with a feeble and braggart husband whose foolish crime threatens to wreck her own and her children's lives.

Sidgwick and Jackson.

+Rachel Lyman Field+

THREE PILLS IN A BOTTLE: Fantastic play of a little sick boy who gives the medicine that was to have made him strong to feeding the starved and abused souls of various passers-by.

In _Plays of the 47 Workshop_, First Series, Brentano's.

+Anatole France+

THE MAN WHO MARRIED A DUMB WIFE: A mad and comic farce, in the tradition of _Pierre Patelin_ and _The Physician in Spite of Himself_. Judge Botal calls in a learned physician and his aides to make his dumb wife speak. The result is so astoundingly successful that he pleads for relief. Finally a desperate remedy is found.

Translated by Curtis Hidden Page, Lane, 1915.

+J.O. Francis+

CHANGE: The tragic conflict of ideals of two generations which have grown irreparably apart in social and economic views.

Educational Publishing Company, Cardiff; Doubleday, New York.

+Zona Gale+

THE NEIGHBORS: Kindliness called forth among village people to aid a poor seamstress who is to undertake the care of her orphan nephew.

In _Wisconsin Plays, First Series_, B.W. Huebsch.

MISS LULU BETT: A starved life blossoms suddenly and unexpectedly. This play, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for 1920, is stronger and finer work than the author has done heretofore.

Appleton (in novel form).

+John Galsworthy+

THE ELDEST SON: Sir William Cheshire comes to quite different solutions of similar problems when different individual and class factors enter into them.

Scribner's.

JUSTICE: Mr. Ludwig Lewisohn writes: "The economic structure of society on any basis requires the keeping of certain compacts. It cannot endure such a breaking of these compacts as Falder is guilty of when he changes the figures on the cheque. Yet by the simple march of events it is overwhelmingly proven that society here stamps out a human life not without its fair possibilities-- for eighty-one pounds."

Scribner's.

THE LITTLE MAN: Brilliant caricature of various national types of tourist, and absurd apotheosis of the Little Man, of no particular nation and of insignificant appearance, who proves quietly capable of doing what the rest discuss.

Scribner's.

THE MOB: The reply of the hysterical and "patrioteering" members of his own class, and of the many-headed rage, to a man who stood against an unjust war.

Scribner's.

THE PIGEON: A discussion of social misfits and mavericks, with, of course, no attempted panacea or solution.

Scribner's.

THE SILVER Box:

"Jones: Call this justice? What about 'im? 'E got drunk! 'E took the purse--'E took the purse, but (_in a muffled shout_) it's 'is money got '_im_ off! _Justice_!

"The Magistrate: We will now adjourn for lunch." (Act II.)

In _Plays, First Series_, Scribner's, 1916.

STRIFE: In the strike the leaders of the men and of the employers are stanch against compromise, but "the strong men with strong convictions are broken. The second-rate run the world through half-measures and concessions." (Lewisohn.)

_Ibid._

+Louise Ayers Garnett+

MASTER WILL OF STRATFORD: A pleasant drama of Will Shakespeare's boyhood. Compare Landor's "Citation and Examination of Will Shakespeare for Deer-Stealing."

Macmillan.

+Alice Gerstenberg+

OVERTONES: While two women are conversing politely, they are attended by their real, unconventional selves, who interrupt to say what the women actually think and mean. Compare Ninah Wilcox Putnam's _Orthodoxy_ (_Forum_, June, 1914, 51:801), in which everyone in church says what he is thinking instead of what is proper and expected.

In _Washington Square Plays_, Doubleday.

+Giuseppa Giacosa+

THE RIGHTS OF THE SOUL: Anna is sternly loyal to her husband Paolo, but refuses to submit to his incessant prying into her individuality and questioning of her thoughts and her feelings.

Frank Shay.

THE WAGER: "Sentimental comedy, poetic and graceful, by one of the greatest contemporary Italian dramatists."

Barrett H. Clark, translator. French.

+W.S. Gilbert+

ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN: A most absurd parody on Hamlet, wherein a lamentable tragedy written and repented by his uncle the king is unearthed and turned to the sad prince's undoing.

In _Original Plays_, Scribner's.

ENGAGED

PRINCESS IDA

+William Gillette+

SECRET SERVICE: A most intense situation in Richmond during the Civil War, ably handled by a quiet and brilliant Northern secret-service man; weakened by a manufactured happy ending.

French.

+Susan Glaspell+

TRIFLES: Two women, by noting the significant trifles which the sheriff and the attorney overlook, discover the story of suffering which led to a crime. Speaking of their neglect of neighborly kindness, one says, "That's a crime too, and who's going to punish that?"

In _Washington Square Plays_.

+Lady Gregory+

IRISH FOLK-HISTORY PLAYS:

I. THE TRAGEDIES: Stories of the beautiful and potent queens who brought suffering upon themselves and upon others; compare Synge's and Yeats's stories of Deirdre.

Putnam.

II. THE TRAGI-COMEDIES: THE WHITE COCKADE: In which James II defeats the gains of his loyal subjects by his abject and ridiculous cowardice.

Putnam.

CANAVANS: A covetous miller, his clever wandering brother, and some pleasant absurdity about the popular worship of Queen Elizabeth by her loyal subjects in Ireland.

Putnam.

THE DELIVERER: Apparently an Irish peasant's idea of the story of Moses.

Putnam.

WORKHOUSE WARD; HYACINTH HALVEY; THE JACKDAW:

Comedies full of Irish wit, conscious and unconscious comedy, and endless complication of events and hearsay in Cloon.

All in _Seven Short Plays_, Putnam.

THE BOGIE MAN; THE FULL MOON; COATS:

More about Cloon people, including the rescue of Hyacinth Halvey from his troublesome reputation and from the place by the magic and lunacy of moonlight.

In _New Irish Comedies_, Putnam.

DAMER'S GOLD: A fortunate rescue from the torments of miserliness and pestilent heirs; the author's notes on the origin of the play are interesting.

_Ibid._

THE GAOL GATE: A brief and effective tragic story of two women who fear that their man has betrayed his mates, but who find that he has been hanged without informing; the mother improvises a psalm of praise of his steadfastness.

In _Seven Short Plays_.

THE TRAVELING MAN: A peasant woman who has been befriended by a mysterious wanderer expects his return so that she may thank him. She drives away a tramp from her kitchen, and then discovers who he was.

_Ibid._

THE GOLDEN APPLE: Many scenes, some excellent fun; of a search for miraculous fruit, of a giant who is high and bloodthirsty only in carefully fostered reputation, and the like matters.

Putnam.

+St. John Hankin+

THE PERFECT LOVER: Delightful dramatic version of Suckling's "Constant Lover."

In _Dramatic Works_, Seeker.

RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL: The same young man, or his close image, having managed to be received by his family as a returned prodigal, calmly puts upon them the question of his future.

_Ibid._

THE CASSILIS ENGAGEMENT

_Ibid._

+Gerhardt Hauptmann+

THE WEAVERS: Painful presentation of the suffering of the German weavers in the first adjustments of the Industrial Revolution.

In Dickinson's _Chief Contemporary Dramatists_; also in Lewisohn's translations, Huebsch.

+Winifred N. Hawkridge+

THE FLORIST SHOP: Rather sentimentalist play of good influences wafted by a young woman as a florist's clerk; excellent business combines with the influences.

In _Harvard Dramatic Club Plays, First Series_, Brentano's.

+Hazelton and Benrimo+

THE YELLOW JACKET: The conventions of the Chinese theatre, more or less faithfully presented, make a quite comical presentment of an ancient Chinese legend.

Bobbs, Merrill.

+Theresa Helburn+

ENTER THE HERO: A madly fanciful girl fabricates a romance out of whole cloth, casts a friend as hero, and tells her small world about it. Even the rough measures the hero has to use to escape do not succeed in curing her of the habit.

In _Flying Stage Plays, No. 4_, Ahrens; _Fifty Contemporary One-Act Plays_, Stewart and Kidd.

+Perez Hirschbein+

IN THE DARK: Grim and awful picture of the depths of misery and starvation in a Ghetto basement. Translated by Goldberg.

In _Six Plays of the Yiddish Theatre, First Series_: Luce.

+Hugo von Hofmannsthal+

MADONNA DIANORA: Fearsome tragedy of the Ring-and-Book sort, beautifully and poignantly presented.

Translated by Harriett Boas, Badger.

+Stanley Houghton+

THE DEAR DEPARTED: Somewhat precipitate haste for advantage in dividing grandfather's effects is fittingly rebuked.

In _Dramatic Works_, vol. i. French, New York; Constable, London.

THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT: A mother finds being an "imaginary invalid" excellent for checkmating her daughter's plans, but inconveniently in the way of her own.

_Ibid._

+Laurence Housman+

RETURN OF ALCESTIS: A modern poetic view of the spirit of Alcestis returning to Admetus after her sacrifice and rescue. Edwin Arlington Robinson has also handled this theme lately.

French.

BIRD IN HAND: A pedantic old scholar is mysteriously plagued by an illusion of faery, but in time conquers the obsession.

French.

BETHLEHEM: A nativity play.

Macmillan.

THE CHINESE LANTERN: Pleasantly effective scenes in a Chinese studio.

Sidgwick and Jackson.

+William Dean Howells+

THE SLEEPING CAR; THE REGISTER; THE MOUSE TRAP; THE ALBANY DEPOT; THE GARROTERS:

Amusing but somewhat worn farces, several of them introducing the voluble Mrs. Roberts and her family.

+Henrik Ibsen+

AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE: A scientist who insists on making known, and setting to work to remedy, the evils and wrongs of his community has to reckon with the people; compare The Mob, by John Galsworthy.

Boni and Liveright.

THE DOLL'S HOUSE: Nora Hjalmar, who has always been petted and shielded, at last has to face and solve certain difficult problems for herself. She thus discovers just how much her husband's love and indulgence are worth. Her solution of the difficulty is presented, not as necessarily the right thing to have done, but as what such a woman would do under the circumstances.

Boni and Liveright.

THE LADY FROM THE SEA: Ellida Wrangel, wife of the village pastor, feels the call of the sea; she feels she must go with the rough sailor to whom she was once betrothed. When Wrangel sincerely offers her liberty to choose, she "seeks the security of a familiar home, and the wild lure of the great sea spaces can trouble her no more." (Lewisohn.)

Boni and Liveright.

+W.W. Jacobs and Others+

ADMIRAL PETERS; THE GRAY PABKOT; THE CHANGELING; BOATSWAIN'S MATE: Jolly farces of sailors and watchmen and their families, based on Jacobs's stories in _Captains All, Many Cargoes_, and the rest.

French.

THE MONKEY'S PAW: A most fearful and gruesome play, based on Jacobs's story, in the vein of the _Three Wishes_, and the _Foot of Pharaoh_, by Gautier.

French.

+Jerome K. Jerome+

FANNY AND THE SERVANT PBOBLEM: The new Lady Bantock is surprised to discover both her real rank and her strange relationship with her twenty-three servants. An interesting character study.

French.

+William Ellery Leonard+

GLORY OF THE MORNING: The pathos of two civilizations contending for the children of the Indian woman, Glory of the Morning; they must go with their father to France or stay with their mother. Dr. Leonard has newly completed another powerful tragedy, _Red Bird_, as yet unpublished.

In _Wisconsin Plays, First Series_, 1914, B.W. Huebsch.

+Justin McCarthy+

IF I WERE KING: A romantic play, in the vein of De Banville's _Gringoire_, in which Villon becomes Marshal of France, for a brief time and with a fearful condition stipulated by the spider-king, Louis XI.

Heinemann.

+Edward Knoblauch and Arnold Bennett+

MILESTONES: Three different generations, with their different ideas and ideals, confront similar problems with different views, and arrive at various conclusions.

Doran.

+Percy Mackaye+

THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS: Mr. Mackaye, translator with Professor Tatlock of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, has written here a clever play of the travelers' adventures. The Wife of Bath is of course the ringleader in mischief.

Macmillan.

CALIBAN BY THE YELLOW SANDS: A masque for the Shakespeare Tercentenary Celebration, New York City.

Doubleday.

JEANNE D'ARC: A tragedy made up of incidents in the life of the Maid.

Macmillan.

SAM AVERAGE: A Silhouette. A soldier of 1812 is kept true to the cause by a vision of Sam Average, the spirit of his nation.

In Yankee Fantasies, Duffield.

THE SCARECROW: A lively dramatization of Hawthorne's Feathertop, from Mosses from an Old Manse.

Macmillan.

+Mary MacMillan+

THE SHADOWED STAR: Portraying the cruel suffering of two Irish peasant women who wait in a city tenement for Christmas as they remember it.

In Short Plays, Stewart and Kidd.

+Maurice Maeterlinck+

ARDIANE AND BLUEBEARD: A resolute wife finally defies Bluebeard and rescues his wives; but they refuse to forsake their unfortunate and beloved husband.

Dodd, Mead.

A MIRACLE OF SAINT ANTHONY

THE INTRUDER; THE DEATH OF TINTAGILES; INTERIOR (OR HOME):

Poignant and mystical tragedies expressing the unseen and inescapable forces surrounding and closing in upon men's lives.

Boni and Liveright; Dodd, Mead.

THE BLUE BIRD: Two peasant children, accompanied by their friends Dog, Cat, Bread, Sugar, and others, search everywhere for the blue bird of happiness. They visit among other places the realms of the dead, where their grandparents are, and of the unborn. Finally they look in the last and likeliest place.

Dodd, Mead.

THE BETROTHAL: Further adventures of Tytyl.

Dodd, Mead.

+John Masefield+

PHILIP THE KING; TRAGEDY OF POMPEY THE GREAT:

High tragedies. The great Pompey, defeated by the upstart Ceesar, is kingly to the end.

Sidgwick and Jackson, London; Macmillan, New York.

THE SWEEPS OF NINETY-EIGHT: A fugitive from an unsuccessful rebellion achieves a sweeping revenge upon the leaders of the enemy; amusing comedy.

Macmillan.

THE TRAGEDY OF NAN: One of the most poignantly tragic of modern plays; the mercilessness of weak and selfish people crushes out a beautiful life.

Richards, London.

+Rutherford Mayne (J. Waddell)+

THE DRONE: An old man by playing craftily at being on the eve of a great invention lives most comfortably on his brother's means; but forces accumulate against him and he is threatened with eviction from the hive.

Luce.

+George Middleton+

THE BLACK TIE: A play of sharp and quiet suffering, presenting at a new angle the Southern cleavage of races. The negro classes are not allowed to appear in the Sunday-school procession, and the small disappointment is typical of greater deprivations.

In Possession and other One-Act Plays, Holt.

MASKS: An author who has spoiled a good play so that it will "go" on the stage is called upon by the angry characters, whom he created and then forced to do as they would not really have done.

In Masks and other One-Act Plays, Holt.

MOTHERS: A mother tries in vain to prevent a young woman whom she loves from marrying her son and repeating the misery of her own marriage with a weakling.

In Tradition and other One-Act Plays, Holt.

ON BAIL: A gambler's wife who has shared his illegal gains must help him pay his debt to the law; their son, too, is involved.

_Ibid._

THE TWO HOUSES: An old professor and his wife talk quietly together of the plans and the realities they have lived among.

In Masks, etc.

WAITING: False conventional ideas have long thwarted, and now threaten to wreck, the happiness of people who care greatly for each other.

In Tradition, etc.

+Edna St. Vincent Millay+

ABIA DA CAPO: A fantasy in which Pierrot, Columbine, and the Grecian shepherds of Theocritus display their varied views of life.

In Reedy's Mirror: reprinted in Fifty Contemporary One-Act Plays, Stewart and Kidd, Cincinnati.

+Allan Milne+

THE BOY COMES HOME: A war profiteer has a bad half-hour of difficulties in getting his soldier nephew to work and live according to his views; he then faces the problem in reality.

In First Plays, Knopf.

THE LUCKY ONE: The Lucky One fails to win a trick he had counted on, but his chorus of relatives--surely related to Sir Willoughby Patterne's--do not even notice the misfortune.

_Ibid._

WURZEL-FLUMMERY: Of two men offered a good-sized fortune by a will provided they will adopt Wurzel-Flummery in place of their own more satisfactory surnames, and of their decision.

_Ibid._

+Allan Monkhouse+

NIGHT WATCHES: A quiet and vivid picturing of the potential cruelty and frightfulness of ordinary well-meaning ignorance and terror; the fable reminds one of Galsworthy's "The Black Godmother," in The Inn of Tranquillity.

In War Plays, Constable, London.

+William Vaughn Moody+

THE FAITH HEALER: A serious drama presenting in moving and human fashion the effects of faith and disillusion.

Macmillan.

+Dhan Gopal Mukerji+

THE JUDGMENT or INDRA: A Hindu play, in which a priest of Indra, after making a supreme sacrifice of himself and others in order to root out human affection from his heart, thinks that his god speaks in the lightning of the storm that ensues.

In Fifty Contemporary One-Act Plays, edited by Shay and Loving. Stewart and Kidd.

+Tracy Mygatt+

GOOD FRIDAY: A Passion Play. A powerful tragedy of the conscientious objector.

Published by the author, 23 Bank Street, New York, N.Y.

+Alfred Noyes+

SHERWOOD: A poetical play of Robin Hood and his band.

Stokes.

+Eugene O'Neill+

BEYOND THE HORIZON: The Pulitzer Prize Play, 1920. A tragic story of a young man who longed to seek romance "beyond the horizon," and could find neither that nor any happiness, but only defeat and misery, in his everyday surroundings.

Boni and Liveright.

BOUND EAST FOR CARDIFF: The injury and death of a forecastle hand, illuminating the varying natures of his shipmates.

In Moon of the Caribbees, Boni and Liveright.

IN THE ZONE: Suspicion of treachery in the submarine zone, directed against a sailor who is different from the rest in the forecastle.

_Ibid._

WHERE THE CROSS IS MADE: An old sailor goes mad waiting futilely for the return of a treasure expedition he has sent out, and the madness of his idea spreads like panic.

_Ibid._

+Hubert Osborne+

THE GOOD MEN DO: AN INDECOROUS EPILOGUE: Shakespeare's family carefully burn his surviving plays in the effort to cast oblivion upon his low occupation.

In Plays of the 47 Workshop, First Series, 1918.

+Monica Barrie O'Shea+

THE RUSHLIGHT: A mother, whose son may be saved if he will betray his comrades, has only to send him a paper containing the information the authorities want. Her attitude should be compared with that of the women in Campbell of Kilmhor and Lady Gregory's The Gaol Gate.

Drama, November, 1917, 28:602.

+Louis N. Parker+

DISRAELI: Play of intrigue centring about the character of Lord Beaconsfield and his manoeuvres to obtain control of the Suez Canal.

Lane.

MINUET: A brief play of courage and loyalty in face of Madame Guillotine.

In Century Magazine, January, 1915.

+Josephine Preston Peabody+

MARLOWE: A tragedy introducing several of the Elizabethan playwrights in tavern scenes, and making a fine and romantic character of Kit Marlowe.

Houghton Mifflin.

THE PIPER: A pleasant dramatization of the legend of Hamelin Town.

Houghton Mifflin.

THE WOLF OF GUBBIO: A play about Saint Francis and some of his brothers, both animals and villagers.

Houghton Mifflin.

+Louise Saunders (Perkins)+

THE WOODLAND PRINCESS: Very attractive children's operetta with music by Alice Terhune.

Schirmer; French.

+Stephen Phillips+

ULYSSES: A drama or masque of Ulysses' adventures, from his farewell to Calypso through a vigorous combat with the wooers.

Macmillan.

+Eden Phillpotts+

THE SHADOW: A most affecting and tragic play of the influence of a crime upon two people who love most sincerely, and upon their very loyal friend.

In _Three Plays_, Duckworth, London.

THE MOTHER: A moving presentation of the force of a mother's sense and love; she refuses to shield her son when he has done wrong, but works in every way to set him straight and to continue her influence after her death.

_Ibid._

THE POINT OF VIEW: A domestic altercation is arbitrated by a friend of the family, and then the arbiter is given new light on the situation.

_Curtain Raisers_, Duckworth, London.

+Arthur Wing Pinero+

THE PLAYGOERS: A farce in which a lady attempts to provide cultural amusement for her servants, and succeeds in breaking up the smooth-running establishment.

London.

+David Pinski+

ABIGAIL: A dramatization of a Biblical story from the wars of David. Translated from the Yiddish by Dr. Goldberg.

In _Six Plays of the Yiddish Theatre_, Luce.

FORGOTTEN SOULS: Fanny Segal's self-sacrifice for her sister and lover is carried to a strange and morbid extreme.

In _Six Plays of the Yiddish Theatre_, Luce.

+Graham Pryce+

THE COMING OF FAIR ANNIE: A simple but effective dramatization of the old ballad.

Gowans and Gray.

+Richard Pryce and Arthur Morrison+

THE DUMB CAKE: A St. Agnes' Eve story in a London slum.

French.

+Serafin and Joaquim Quintero+

A SUNNY MOHNING: Two very old people recall the tremendously romantic happenings of their early youth.