Written in 1903, “The Cherry Orchard” was Anton Chekhov’s final play, widely regarded as one of his greatest dramatic accomplishments. It is a story set during the decline of the aristocracy and the rise of an emergent middle class in Russian society at the turn of the 20th Century. Madame Ranevsky and her daughters have returned to their family estate, including its famous cherry orchard, to oversee the auction of the estate in order to pay the ...
First performed in 1882, Henrik Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People” is the story of the animosity that can befall someone whose actions, while in the best interest of the public good, threaten the economic well being of a community. The story begins during an evening of entertaining at the household of Dr. Stockmann, the titular “enemy of the people”. When the mayor of the town, Dr. Stockmann’s brother Peter, and the editor of the town newspaper, H ...
Collected in this volume are five of Chekhov’s most popular dramatic works: “Ivanov”, “The Sea-Gull”, “Uncle Vanya”, “Three Sisters” and “The Cherry Orchard”. Firstly in “Ivanov” we find the taut psychological drama of Nikolai Ivanov, a man who is severely conflicted by the illness of his wife, his mounting debts, and his own internal desires. Secondly, “The Sea-Gull” is the story of the romantic and artistic conflicts between four main characte ...
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known popularly by his stage name Moliere, is regarded as one of the masters of French comedic drama. When Moliere began acting in Paris there were two well-established theatrical companies, those of the Hotel de Bourgogne and the Marais. Joining these theatrical companies would have been impossible for a new member of the acting profession like Moliere and thus he performed with traveling troupes of actors in the French ...
Considered by many as Johann Goethe’s magnum opus, “Faust” has a peculiar history of composition and publication. What began as a project in Goethe’s youth, at the age of twenty, in 1769, “Faust” would not fully be completed until 1831 very near the end of the author’s life. Based on the German legend of Johann Georg Faust, a magician of the German Renaissance who reportedly gained his mystical powers by selling his immortal soul to the devil, t ...
Based on the real life of the seventeenth century French dramatist of the same name, “Cyrano de Bergerac” is Edmond Rostand’s classic romantic play. Cyrano, a cadet in the French Army, is a talented duelist, poet, and musician, however he has extreme self-doubt in matters of love due to the large size of his nose. Cyrano is conflicted by his inability to summon the confidence to tell the woman that he adores, Roxane, how he truly feels. He write ...
“The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays” brings together Oscar Wilde’s most popular plays which first appeared between 1891 and 1895. Despite his relatively short theatrical career, Wilde’s plays have enjoyed a sustained popularity. A classic satire of Victorian society, “The Importance of Being Earnest” is one of the author’s most frequently performed works. The play trivializes its characters, who through a series of deceptions preten ...
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known popularly by his stage name Moliere, is regarded as one of the masters of French comedic drama. When Moliere began acting in Paris there were two well-established theatrical companies, those of the Hotel de Bourgogne and the Marais. Joining these theatrical companies would have been impossible for a new member of the acting profession like Moliere and thus he performed with traveling troupes of actors in the French ...
A classic satire of Victorian society, Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” is one of the author’s most frequently performed works. The story trivializes its characters, who through a series of deceptions pretend to be people that they are not in order to escape the burdensome demands of social conventions. When John Worthing visits his best friend Algernon Moncrieff, to whom he is known as Ernest, Algernon notices the curious inscrip ...
