The Seagull Reader Plays

by Kelly, Joseph

• ISBN13: 9780393925012
• ISBN10: 0393925013
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-08-02
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Summary

Each volume offers an inviting mix of classics and less familiar pieces, complemented by concise genre introductions, short headnotes and annotations, brief author biographies, and a glossary of terms.The Readers also include access to innovative writing tips, study and review material, and much more at LitWeb and Norton Literature Online.

Author Biography

Joseph Kelly (Ph.D., University of Texas, Austin) is Associate Professor of English at the College of Charleston

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Note on Dates	x
Introduction	xi
What Is Drama?	xi
Dramatic Conventions Then and Now	xii
Cultural Context	xiii
Page versus Stage	xiv
The Parts of a Play	xvi
Plot	xvi
Character	xix
Spectacle	xxi
Symbolism	xxiii
Tragedy	xxv
Comedy	xxviii
Major Moments in the History of Theater	xxix
Greek Theater	xxix
Elizabethan Theater	xxxii
Nineteenth-Century Middle-Class Theater	xxxv
The Provincetown Players	xxxvi
Contemporary American Theater	xxxviii
Regional Theaters	xl
Conclusion	xl
Plays
Oedipus the King	3	(51)
Sophocles
Hamlet	54	(128)
William Shakespeare
A Doll House	182	(72)
Henrik Ibsen
The Importance of Being Earnest	254	(63)
Oscar Wilde
Trifles	317	(15)
Susan Glaspell
The Glass Menagerie	332	(68)
Tennessee Williams
Fences	400	(69)
August Wilson
M. Butterfly	469	(66)
David Henry Hwang
Biographical Sketches	535	(6)
Glossary	541	(6)
Permissions Acknowledgments	547