Category: Plays/Films/Dramas
_Pandora’s Box_, Act I--a commendable compression, because the whole cholera episode is morbid and nearly incredible, and a swift flight to France after Schön’s murder is quite thinkable without the long, mostly undramatic speeches that overload the present commencement of _Pa...
_Pandora’s Box_, Act I--a commendable compression, because the whole cholera episode is morbid and nearly incredible, and a swift flight to France after Schön’s murder is quite...
2. SCENE 7. The Graveyard.It will be noted that the scenes concluding the acts, long scenes all of them, are intended to occupy the full stage, and that the prior scenes in each act may be played in the...
3. SCENE I.--_A pretty little room, with a window looking out on anWENDLA _stands at the foot of the bed, all dressed except for her frock, which hangs on the chair in front of her. Her mother stands on the other side of the table, with a long...
4. SCENE II.--_Sunday evening. A gravel walk in front of a park bench;MORITZ--School makes me wish I’d been a cabhorse sooner!--What do we go to school for? So that somebody can examine us. And what are we examined for? To make us flunk! Seven of...
5. SCENE III.--_A stormy afternoon._ MARTHA, WENDLA _and_ THEA _areWENDLA--Let’s go out to the bridge. Ilse said the river was full of bushes and trees. The boys have a raft on the water. They say Melchi Gabor nearly got drowned yesterday evening.
6. SCENE IV.--_Near the Boys’ School. All the boys but_ MELCHIOR _andMORITZ--I’ve passed!--Melchior, I’ve passed! Oh, let the world go hang now--I have passed!--Who would have believed that I’d be promoted! I can’t realize it! Twenty times over I...
7. SCENE V.--_A sunny afternoon in a wood of beech and oak trees. ThickMELCHIOR--[_Seeing her, stops dead._] Is it really you, Wendla? What are you doing up here so all alone? I’ve been tramping up and down this wood for the last three hours withou...
8. SCENE I.--MELCHIOR’S _study. A recess, rear center, with casementslooking out upon moonlit garden and dark, evening woods. Window-seat. Low table with a well-shaded oil lamp, books, cigarettes, etc._ MORITZ _and_ MELCHIOR _sit on the two ends...
9. SCENE II.--WENDLA’S _room, empty_. MRS. BERGMANN, _her hat on, herMRS. BERGMANN--And what fine nephews they are!--That’s just the way of it when one lives so close to the church roof.--It’ll be just two [and a half?] years to-morrow since she...
10. SCENE III.--_A toilet--not to be thought of as equipped with modernHANSY--Hast thou prayed to-night, Desdemona? [_He draws from his bosom a reproduction of the Venus of Palma Vecchio._] I shouldn’t say you looked like “Our Father Who Art in Hea...
11. SCENE IV.--_A hayloft. Murky light, the smell of fresh hay_, MELCHIORWENDLA--Now I certainly won’t go. [_She kneels beside him._] Why won’t you come out on the hayfield with us, Melchior? Here it’s so sultry and dark! What if we =do= get wet to t...
12. SCENE V.--MRS. GABOR _sits and writes_.I take up my pen with a heavy heart after twenty-four hours of considering and reconsidering everything that you write me. The money for passage to America I am not able, I give...
13. SCENE VI.--_The_ BERGMANN _Garden in the radiance of the morning sun_.WENDLA--[_Discovered._] Why have you stolen out of the house?--To look for violets!--Because mother sees me smiling.--And why can’t you stop, and shut your lips tight any more?-...
14. SCENE VII.--_Twilight. The sky is lightly overcast. The path windsMORITZ--It is better so.--I don’t fit in. Let them mount and climb upon each other’s heads.--I will pull the door to behind me, and step into the open. I won’t pay so much just...
15. SCENE I.--_The Faculty Room. Two small, high windows, one of themwalled up. Portraits of Pestalozzi and J. J. Rousseau on the walls. Long, narrow, green table, with a gaspipe and six flaring burners over it. At one end, on a platform_, PRINCI...
16. SCENE II.--_A graveyard seen through pouring rain. Gray stone wallabout five feet high, and quite close to it, parallel with it, an open grave, behind which stands_ PASTOR KAHLBAUCH, _umbrella in left hand and prayer-book in right, flanked by_...
17. SCENE III.--MR. _and_ MRS. GABOR _face each other, the window betweenMRS. GABOR-- ... They were in need of a scapegoat. They couldn’t disregard the accusations that were springing up on every side against =them=. And now that my son has had the i...
18. SCENE IV.--_The House of Correction. The setting may be the same asMELCHIOR--[_To himself._] It isn’t wise for me to stay out. Everyone keeps an eye on me. I must join in--or my creature will go to the devil.--The confinement makes them abuse t...
19. SCENE V.--WENDLA’S _room_. WENDLA _in bed_. MRS. BERGMANN _atDR. VON BRAUSEPULVER--I have been prescribing Blaud’s pills for fifteen years, and in a great many cases have observed the most inspiring improvement. I prefer them to cod-liver...
20. SCENE VI.--_Vintagers, men and women, are in the Vineyard. In the westthe sun is sinking behind the mountain peaks. A clear sound of bells comes up from the valley.--At the uppermost vine-trellis, under the overhanging cliffs_, HANSY RILOW and ERN...
21. SCENE VII.--_The graveyard, in a clear November night. On bush andI must look over there among the latest ones.--The wind whistles past every stone with a different note--a heart-chilling symphony! The rotten wreaths blow apart and dangle on t...
22. ACT ISCENE--_A roomy studio. Entrance door at the rear, left. Another door at lower left to the bedroom. At centre, a platform for the model, with a Spanish screen behind it, shieldi...
23. ACT IISCENE--_A very ornamental parlor. Entrance-door rear, left. Curtained entrances right and left, steps leading up to the right one. On the back wall over the fireplace_, LULU’S _...
24. ACT IIISCENE--_A theatrical dressing-room, hung with red. Door upper right. Across upper left corner, a Spanish screen. Centre, a table set endwise, on which dance costumes lie. Chair...
25. ACT IVSCENE--_A splendid hall in German Renaissance style, with a heavy ceiling of carved oak. The lower half of the walls of dark carved wood; the upper half on both sides hung with...
26. ACT ISCENE--_The hall of “Earth-Spirit,” Act IV, feebly lighted by an oil lamp on the centre table. Even this is dimmed by a heavy shade._ LULU’S _picture is gone from the easel, whi...
27. ACT IISCENE--_A spacious salon in white stucco. In the rear wall, between two high mirrors, a wide folding doorway showing in the rear room a big card-table surrounded by Turkish upho...
28. ACT IIISCENE--_An attic room, without windows, but with two skylights, under one of which stands a bowl filled with rain-water. Down right, a door thru a board partition into a sort of...