By the turn of the century Henry Arthur Jones was among the most prominent British dramatists. A contemporary of Pinero, Wilde and Shaw, he did his best to elevate drama to the level of literature whilst constructing plays that were also successful in the commercial theatre. Though some of his contemporaries considered Jones cynical and daring, he strove to confront major issues without offending accepted social and dramatic conventions.

This volume contains three of Jones's ninety-odd plays, representing the best of his work in different styles: melodrama and society drama. The Silver King...

A cofounder of the Provincetown Players and winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Susan Glaspell (1876-1948) was one of the first female playwrights. Although long neglected, the four plays collected in this critical edition reveal the thoroughly modern nature of her concerns. Trifles (1916) develops a feminist critique of social role, while The Outside (1917) stages a debate between the life force and a perverse celebration of death. In The Verge (1921), Glaspell presented an experimental work of considerable proportions, more daring in many ways than anything attempted by O'Neill. And...

The Cambridge Paperback Guide to Theatre is a concise reference work with 2,826 entries on playwrights, actors, directors, critics and entertainers; on theaters, organizations and companies; on traditions, styles and genres of performance. Entries reach back to Sanskrit drama and the theater of ancient Greece and extend to contemporary practitioners. The emphasis is on performance in its broad sense, including popular entertainment as well as scripted drama, with coverage of circus, musical theater and pantomime; on male and female impersonation; gay and lesbian theater; Indian festival and...

The Cambridge Guide to African and Caribbean Theatre is an exploration of the rich diversity of theatrical traditions in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean. Beautifully illustrated throughout, the book traces the ancient and complex roots of African theatre - still evident in community festivals and religious rituals - through the centuries of colonial domination, to the African diaspora and its manifestation in Caribbean theatre. Drawing upon the parent Cambridge Guide to Theatre, material is updated and refocused to offer a specific view of traditional and contemporary theatre activity in...

Offering a comprehensive account of a long and varied chronicle, this history of theater in Africa is comprised of essays written by scholars in the field. The coverage is geographically broad and includes an examination of the concepts of "history" and "theater" in Africa; North Africa; Francophone theatre; Anglophone West Africa; East Africa; Southern Africa; Lusophone African theatre; Mauritius and Reunion; as well as the African diaspora.

Offering a comprehensive account of a long and varied chronicle, this history of theater in Africa is comprised of essays written by scholars in the field. The coverage is geographically broad and includes an examination of the concepts of "history" and "theater" in Africa; North Africa; Francophone theatre; Anglophone West Africa; East Africa; Southern Africa; Lusophone African theatre; Mauritius and Reunion; as well as the African diaspora.

This edition comprises four of Robertson's most successful comedies: Society (1865), Ours (1866), Caste (1867), and School (1869).

This edition contains the three most important works of Charles Reade (1814 1884). Reade adapted the social purpose and concern for detail of the realistic novel to the stage. He was much concerned with poverty, the brutality of the prison regime of his time and the abuse of mental asylums. He assigned a specially important role to women in his plays, choosing to write for the charismatic actresses of his day. Masks and Faces (1852) is concerned with the public image and private life of a leading Covent Garden actress; The Courier of Lyons (1854) is based upon a real case of mistaken...

This volume introduces the works of an important but neglected dramatist, one of the most prolific and popular of the mid-Victorian period.

For this volume George Taylor has edited five plays by two largely forgotten eighteenth-century playwrights, Samuel Foote and Arthur Murphy.