Samuel A. Weiss

2104 Drama in the Modern World: Plays and Essays, by Samuel A. Weiss [includes: The Wild Duck, by Henrik Ibsen; Miss Julie, by August Strindberg; The Cherry Orchard, by Anton Chekhov; Major Barbara, by George Bernard Shaw; The Playboy of the Western World, by John Millington Synge; Six Characters in Search of an Author, by Luigi Pirandello; Desire Under the Elms, by Eugene O'Neill; The House of Bernarda Alba, by Frederico Garcia Lorca; Ondine, by Jean Giraudoux; The Good Woman of Setzuan, by Bertoldt Brecht; The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams; The Bald Soprano, by Eugene Ionesco; All That Fall, by Samuel Beckett; and It Happened in Irkutsk, by Alexei Arbuzov] (read 26 Oct 1987) The Wild Duck is a really stupid sort of play, with impossible people. Miss Julie seemed terribly dated to me, with all its attention to class distinctions. The Cherry Orchard made no sense to me and I have a hard time understanding the point of it. Major Barbara is funny, at times. Its message I found dated and Shavian. The Playboy has something to say, and I found it good reading though fantastic. Six Characters really seems outlandish, even though it obviously is trying to say something. Desire is easy to read and its story is outlandish. The Garcia Lorca tells an outlandish story, but it is a story of interest and understandable. Ondine is very outlandish, but one I'd sure like to see performed. Brecht's play is an admirable work, and one to see. The Glass Menagerie is a good play and one I saw performed when I was at Loras College. The Bald Soprano is an "antiplay" and the craziest of all. It is totally incomprehensible, but again I'd like to see it done. Beckett's play is described as his most accessible play. Well, it was not very accessible to me, though I obviously did not study it. Arbuzov's is so bad and comical, one suspects it was put in this collection to show how primitive Soviet drama is. This has been a fun book to read, and has been a good book to read since I really have not kept current in drama as the years have gone by.… (mer)