PLAYS AT PUBLIC LIBRARY

Evening Star, Issue 22684, 25 June 1937, Page 12

PLAYS AT PUBLIC LIBRARY

A REPRESENTATIVE COLLECTION The display in the lending department of the Public Library this week is about drama, with special reference to J. M. Barrie (who died this week) and some of the other Edwardian dramatists. A dramatist who writes in a light and modern vein is Noel Coward. He is represented by ‘ Collected Sketches and Lyrics,’ ‘ Point Valaine,’ and 4 Six Play?.’ A more serious playwright is W. Somerset Maugham, and his plays have been collected in two volumes. f Probably the two foremost American dramatists are Eugene O’Neill and Elmer Rice. Elmer Rice is represented by ‘ Plays,’ ‘ Other Plays, and Not for Children,’ and ‘ Street Scene.’ Eugene O’Neill is interesting to act and to lead. He is, however, often tiring to audiences, as some of his plays are very long, and his dramatic experiments do not always meet the tastes of the audience. The best-known of his plays are ‘ Beyond the Horizon,’ ‘ Marco Millions ’ (a play on Marco Polo), ‘ Emperor Jones,’ ‘ Gold,’ ‘ Mourning Becomes Electra,’ 4 Anna Christie,,’ * All God’s Chilian Got Wings ’ (a play on the colour problem in the United States), < Desire Under the Elms,’ ‘The Hairy Ape,’ ‘ Lazarus Laughs,’ ‘ Strange Interlude,’ and ‘ Dynamo ’ (the most experimental of all his plays). ‘ Pulitzer Prize Plays ’ contains, among others, the following plays:— ‘Why Marry?’ ‘Beyond the Horizon,’ ‘ Miss Lula Bett,’ ‘ Icebound,’ ‘ Hell Bent for Heaven,’ ‘ They Knew What They Wanted,’ ‘ Craig’s Wife,’ ‘ In Abraham’s Bosom,’ ‘ Green Pastures,’ ‘ Alison’s House,’ 1 Of Thee I Sing,’ ‘ Both Your Houses,’ and * Men in White.’ Other American plays are ‘ Depression Island ’ and ‘ Singing Jailbirds ’ (both by Upton Sinclair); ‘ Jay Hawker,’ by Sinclair and Lloyd Lewis; ‘ Stevedore,’ by Peters and Sklar (describing negro lynching in the United States). An interesting playwright is Clifford Odets. His ‘ Three Plays ’ contains ‘ Waiting for Lefty ’ (a play of an American strike) , ‘ Till the Day I Die ’ (depicting life in Nazi Germany), and ‘Awake and Sing.’ He has recently written a full length play, ‘ Paradise Lost.’ The nature of Odet’s talent has been compared with that of Sean O’Casey, whose plays have been collected in ‘ Five Irish Plays;’ which are most realistic. Some of them deal with the Irish uprisings of 1916 onwards, in which O’Casey took an active part. An interesting collection of five plays, the theme of which is Anglo-Jewish relations, is ‘ Israel Set Free,’ by H. F. Rubinstein. Other plays worthy of note are: ‘Exiles,’ by James Joyce; ‘ Life of a Lady,’ by R. Aldington and D. Patmore; ‘Moral Plays,’ by James

Bridie (including 4 Marriage is No Joke,’ 4 Mary Read, 1 and ‘ The Black \ Eye ’); ‘ The Dog Beneath the Skin,’ a play in verse by W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood; ‘ The Ascent of. F6,’ by W. H. Auden; ‘ The Rock ’ and 4 Murder in the Cathedral,’ both by T. S. Eliot; _ ‘ Seven One-act Plays (second series), which is a selection of New Zealand plays,’ and ■ ‘ Palace Plays,’ by Laurence Housman. Thera are several interesting series of plays, including ‘ Famous Plays,’ published yearly from about 1930 onwards, and the ‘ One Act of To-day ’ series. With the death of J. M. Barrie, on Saturday, June 19, passes the third of the great playwrights of the _ early twentieth century. The most important of his plays are ‘The Admirable Crichton ’ (1902), ‘ Peter Pan ’ (1904), ‘ Alice Sit by the Fire ’ (1905), ‘ What Every’ Woman Knows’ (1908), ‘A Kiss for Cinderella’ (1916), ‘Dear Brutus’ (1917), ‘ Mary Rose ’ (1920), and ‘Shall We Join the Ladies?' (1922) Arnold Bennett is better known, at a novelist than as a playwright.. He has written many plays and-books of essays which may 'be obtained at the library. His most notable work is the ‘ Old Wives Tale ’ (1908), which took five years to write. His principal work* are 4 Buried Alive ’ (1908), 4 Clayhanger ’ (1910), ‘ Rioeyman Steps *■ (1923) ‘ The Woman Who Stole Every* thing’ (1927), ‘The Vanguard • (1927), ‘Accident’ (1929), and ‘lmperial Palace ’ (1930). Most of these are obtainable in ‘ The Arnold Bennett Omnibus Book.’ John Galsworthy will be remembered as the author of the English family novel, ‘ The Forsyte Saga.’ Hi* moat famous plavs are ‘ The Skm Game’ (1920). ‘A Family Mwt* (1921), ‘Loyalties’ (1922), dows' (1922), and * Old Engliw* H 924). He was not able to leave ni* family alone, however, and from 19241930 ho continued the Forsyte group in ‘The White Monkey’ (1924), ‘The Swan Song’ (1928), ‘On Forsyte ’Change* (1930), and several others. The last of the great dramatists i* George Bernard Shaw. His reputation was made during the first 10 year* of his literary career, when he was employed as a critic of music and drama for several well-known newspapers. About 1895 he commenced writing plays, and some of his better known ones are displayed. They are ‘ Three Plays for Puritans,’ ‘ Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant,’ ‘ Too True to Good,’ ‘ Village Wooing,’ ‘Or the ' Rocks,’ ‘ The Doctor’s Dilemma,’ ‘ Getting Married,’ ‘The Simpleton,’ and ‘ Man and Superman.’