DRAMA

The annotations provided below are taken from a variety of sources including SparkNotes and amazon.com.

A Doll’s House

Author:  Ibsen, Henrik

One of the best-known, most frequently performed of modern plays, displaying Ibsen’s genius for realistic prose drama. A classic expression of women’s rights, the play builds to a climax in which the central character, Nora, rejects a smothering marriage and life in "a doll’s house." Publisher’s Note. Contents. Dramatis Personae.

A Raisin in the Sun

Author:  Hansberry, Lorraine

A Raisin in the Sun portrays a few weeks in the life of the Youngers, an African-American family living on the South Side of Chicago in the 1950s.

A Streetcar Named Desire

Author:  Williams, Tennessee

One of the most admired plays of its time, it concerns the mental and moral disintegration and ultimate ruin of Blanche DuBois, a former Southern belle. Her neurotic, genteel pretensions are no match for the harsh realities symbolized by her brutish brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski.

Agamemnon

Author:  Aeschylus

Agamemnon begins with a Watchman on duty on the roof of the palace at Argos, waiting for a signal announcing the fall of Troy to the Greek armies. A beacon flashes, and he joyfully runs to tell the news to Queen Clytemnestra. When he is gone, the Chorus, made up of the old men of Argos, enters and tells the story of how the Trojan Prince Paris stole Helen, the wife of the Greek king Menelaus, leading to ten years of war between Greece and Troy.

An Enemy of the People

Author:  Ibsen, Henrik

When Dr. Thomas Stockmann learns that the famous and financially successful Baths in his home town are contaminated, he insists they be shut down for expensive repairs. Ridiculed and persecuted by the townsfolk for his honesty, he is declared an "enemy of the people." A powerful drama and one of the most frequently performed plays by the writer widely regarded as the "father of modern drama."

Antigone

Author:  Sophocles

Antigone is the girl who will rise up alone and die young. Haemon, Antigone's dashing fiancé, chats with Ismene, her beautiful sister. Though one would have expected Haemon to go for Ismene, he inexplicably proposed to Antigone on the night of a ball

Arms and the Man

Author:  Shaw, George Bernard

Witty masterpiece combines high comedy with social commentary in deflating romantic misconceptions of love and warfare.

Death of a Salesman

Author:  Miller, Arthur

Miller’s most famous work, addresses the painful conflicts within one family, but it also tackles larger issues regarding American national values. The play examines the cost of blind faith in the American Dream.

Doctor Faustus

Author:  Marlowe, Christopher

Insofar as Doctor Faustus is a Christian play, it deals with the themes at the heart of Christianity’s understanding of the world. First, there is the idea of sin, which Christianity defines as acts contrary to the will of God. In making a pact with Lucifer, Faustus commits what is in a sense the ultimate sin: not only does he disobey God, but he consciously and even eagerly renounces obedience to him, choosing instead to swear allegiance to the devil

Equus

Author:  Shaffer, Peter

A psychiatrist, Martin Dysart, investigates the savage blinding of six horses with a metal spike in a stable in Hampshire...

Everyman

Author:  Anonymous

Most durable of medieval morality plays, in which the central character, summoned by death, must face final judgment on the strength of his good deeds

Ghosts

Author:  Ibsen, Henrik

he main theme of Ghosts is the extent to which society invades personal lives. Mrs. Alving, obsessed with keeping up appearances, tries to protect her late husband's reputation. But because of this concern, she not only ends up living a lie and building a memorial to her husband's false reputation, but she also ruins the lives of her husband's two children, Oswald and Regina.

Hedda Gabler

Author:  Ibsen, Henrik

The entire play takes place in the Tesman's living room and in a smaller room to its side. Jürgen Tesman and Hedda Tesman (nee Hedda Gabler) are newlyweds. They have just returned from a six-month honeymoon. Hedda is aristocratic and hard to please.

J.B.

Author:  MacLeish, Archibald

A play in verse

Major Barbara

Author:  Shaw, George Bernard

Andrew Undershaft, a millionaire armaments dealer, loves money and despises poverty. His energetic daughter Barbara, however, is a devout major in the Salvation Army. She sees her father as just another soul to be saved. But when the Salvation Army needs funds to keep going, it is Undershaft who saves the day.

Man and Superman

Author:  Shaw, George Bernard

Man is the spiritual creator, whereas woman is the biological “life force” that must always triumph over him. Act III of Man and Superman contains the almost equally famous dream sequence of Don Juan in Hell.

Medea

Author:  Euripedes

Medea opens in a state of conflict. Jason has abandoned his wife, Medea, along with their two children. He hopes to advance his station by remarrying with Glauce, the daughter of Creon, king of Corinth, the Greek city where the play is set. All the events of play proceed out of this initial dilemma, and the involved parties become its central characters.

Mrs. Warren’s Profession

Author:  Shaw, George Bernard

The play centers on Mrs. Warren, who, forced by the economic realities of nineteenthcentury London, becomes a prostitute and later runs several successful brothels. Through her characterization, Shaw exposes the corruption and hypocrisy of the "'""'"genteel"'""'" class. He also explores the personal consequences of such a profession as Mrs. Warren struggles to gain the respect and love of her daughter after she discovers the truth about her mother.

Murder in the Cathedral

Author:  Eliot, T. S.

A dramatization in verse of the murder of Thomas Becket at Canterbury.

No Exit

Author:  Sartre, Jean Paul

No Exit is a play about the "devouring" gaze of the other and how it restricts one's freedom, incorporated into the play itself and played out on stage through the gaze of the audience members. The characters constantly look for mirrors in order to avoid the judging gaze of each other, while their failure is played out by the constant stare of the play's spectators.

Oedipus Rex

Author:  Sophocles

Catastrophe ensues when King Oedipus discovers he has inadvertently killed his father and married his mother. Masterly use of dramatic irony greatly intensifies impact of agonizing events. Sophocles’ finest play, Oedipus Rex ranks as a towering landmark of Western drama. Explanatory footnotes.

Pygmalion

Author:  Shaw, George Bernard

Pygmalion is a perceptive comedy of wit and wisdom about the unique relationship between a spunky cockney flower-girl and her irascible speech professor. The flower girl Eliza Doolittle teaches the egotistical phonetics professor Henry Higgins that to be a lady means more than just learning to speak like one.

Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are Dead

Author:  Stoppard, Tom

TWO ELIZABETHANS passing the time in a place without any visible character

Saint Joan

Author:  Shaw, George Bernard

Saint Joan, completed in 1925, began the modern rehabilitation of Joan of Arc as a fully human, fallible character--not to mention a poster girl for teenage rebellion and feminism. Shaw's Joan, like the real Maid of Orleans, leads the fight to drive the English out of her native France, insists on direct communication with her God instead of submitting to the mediation of Catholic priests, and refuses to dress, speak, or act according to traditional notions of how women were expected to behave.

She Stoops to Conquer

Author:  Goldsmith, Oliver

A young lady poses as a serving girl to win the heart of a young gentleman too shy to court ladies of his own class. Many delightful deceits, hilarious turns of plot must be played out before the play concludes happily

Tartuffe

Author:  Moliere

nvited to live in his benefactor’s house, he wreaks havoc among family members by breaking off the daughter’s engagement, attempting to seduce his hostess, and resorting to blackmail and extortion.

The Birthday Party

Author:  Pinter, Harold

The Crucible

Author:  Miller, Arthur

critics and cast alike perceived The Crucible as a direct attack on McCarthyism (the policy of sniffing out Communists).

The Euminedes

Author:  Aeschylus

The Frogs

Author:  Aristophones

he Frogs is unique for the light it throws on Classical Greek attitudes toward tragedy and literature in general.

The Iliad

Author:  Homer

Reconstruction of the Trojan Wars

The Importance of Being Earnest

Author:  Wilde, Oscar

Cecily Cardew and Gwendolen Fairfax are both in love with the same mythical suitor. Jack Worthing has wooed Gewndolen as Ernest while Algernon has also posed as Ernest to win the heart of Jack’s ward, Cecily. When all four arrive at Jack’s country home on the same weekend—the "rivals" to fight for Ernest’s undivided attention and the "Ernests" to claim their beloveds—pandemonium breaks loose.

The Misanthrope

Author:  Moliere

potlighting the absurdities of social and literary pretension, focusing on a man who is quick to criticize the faults of others, yet remains blind to his own.

The Piano Lesson

Author:  Wilson, August

The action takes place in Pittsburgh in 1936 at the house of a family of African-Americans who have migrated from Mississippi. The conflict centers around a piano that was once traded by the family's white master for two of the family's ancestors. Boy Willie and Berniece, the siblings who inherit the piano (carved to show family history), argue about whether or not to sell it. Berniece's climactic refusal to allow Boy Willie to move the piano exorcises both the literal and figurative ghost of the white slave owner who has been haunting the family.

The Playboy of the Western World

Author:  Synge, J. M.

The Second Shepherd’s Play

Author:  Harris, Aurand

The Zoo Story

Author:  Albee, Edward

eter (a publishing executive who is reading in New York City's Central Park) is approached by a stranger named Jerry. Announcing "I've been to the zoo!" Jerry proceeds to probe deep into Peter's life. He relates details from his own life--his stay in a rooming house with a bizarre landlady and her repulsive dog and his unsuccessful attempt to poison the dog. Peter grows increasingly agitated by this encounter. Jerry becomes abusive, tosses Peter a knife, provokes him into a fight, and impales himself on the knife.

The School for Scandal

Author:  Sheridan, Richard Brinsley

Often called the best comedy of manners in English

Waiting for Godot

Author:  Becket, Samuel

Plays by William Shakespeare

Antony and Cleopatra

ntony is torn between his duties as a Roman ruler and soldier and his desire to live in Egypt with his lover, Cleopatra. This inner conflict leads him to become embroiled in a war with Caesar, one of his fellow triumvirs.

As You Like It

Rosalind and Orlando fall in love, but Rosalind is unjustly banished from Duke Frederick’s court; Orlando is both denied his birthright by his jealous brother Oliver and forced to flee from the vindictive Duke Frederick.

Hamlet

On a dark winter night, a ghost walks the ramparts of Elsinore Castle in Denmark. Discovered first by a pair of watchmen, then by the scholar Horatio, the ghost resembles the recently deceased King Hamlet, whose brother Claudius has inherited the throne and married the king’s widow, Queen Gertrude. When Horatio and the watchmen bring Prince Hamlet, the son of Gertrude and the dead king, to see the ghost, it speaks to him, declaring ominously that it is indeed his father’s spirit, and that he was murdered by none other than Claudius. Ordering Hamlet to seek revenge on the man who usurped his throne and married his wife, the ghost disappears with the dawn.

Henry IV, Parts I & II

Henry IV has two main plots that intersect in a dramatic battle at the end of the play. The first plot concerns King Henry IV, his son, Prince Harry, and their strained relationship. The second concerns a rebellion that is being plotted against King Henry by a discontented family of noblemen in the North, the Percys, who are angry because of King Henry’s refusal to acknowledge his debt to them. The play’s scenes alternate between these two plot strands until they come together at the play’s end.

Julius Caesar

Two tribunes, Flavius and Murellus, find scores of Roman citizens wandering the streets, neglecting their work in order to watch Julius Caesar’s triumphal parade: Caesar has defeated the Roman general Pompey, his archrival, in battle. The tribunes scold the citizens for abandoning their duties and remove decorations from Caesar’s statues. Caesar enters with his entourage, including the military and political figures Brutus, Cassius, and Antony. A Soothsayer calls out to Caesar to “beware the Ides of March,” but Caesar ignores him and proceeds with his victory celebration

Much Ado About Nothing

Although the young lovers Hero and Claudio provide the main impetus for the plot, the courtship between the older, wiser lovers Benedick and Beatrice is what makes Much Ado About Nothing so memorable. Benedick and Beatrice argue with delightful wit, and Shakespeare develops their journey from antagonism to sincere love and affection with a rich sense of humor and compassion. Since Beatrice and Benedick have a history behind them that adds weight to their relationship, they are older and more mature than the typical lovers in Shakespeare’s comedies, though their unhealthy competitiveness reveals them to be childish novices when it comes to love.

Othello

Othello begins on a street in Venice, in the midst of an argument between Roderigo, a rich man, and Iago. Roderigo has been paying Iago to help him in his suit to Desdemona. But Roderigo has just learned that Desdemona has married Othello, a general whom Iago begrudgingly serves as ensign. Iago says he hates Othello, who recently passed him over for the position of lieutenant in favor of the inexperienced soldier Michael Cassio.

Richard III

Richard, the power-hungry younger brother of the king of England, longs to seize control of the throne, but he is far back in the line of succession. He plots and manipulates his way past the obstacles in his path to power, betraying and murdering with reckless abandon as he proceeds.

Romeo and Juliet

The Merchant of Venice

Antonio, a Venetian merchant, complains to his friends of a melancholy that he cannot explain. His friend Bassanio is desperately in need of money to court Portia, a wealthy heiress who lives in the city of Belmont. Bassanio asks Antonio for a loan in order to travel in style to Portia’s estate. Antonio agrees, but is unable to make the loan himself because his own money is all invested in a number of trade ships that are still at sea. Antonio suggests that Bassanio secure the loan from one of the city’s moneylenders and name Antonio as the loan’s guarantor. In Belmont, Portia expresses sadness over the terms of her father’s will, which stipulates that she must marry the man who correctly chooses one of three caskets. None of Portia’s current suitors are to her liking, and she and her lady-in-waiting, Nerissa, fondly remember a visit paid some time before by Bassanio.

The Tempest

The Tempest tells a fairly straightforward story involving an unjust act, the usurpation of Prospero’s throne by his brother, and Prospero’s quest to re-establish justice by restoring himself to power.