Best of
Plays

1952

The Deep Blue Sea


Terence Rattigan - 1952
    A play sparked by the suicide of actor, Kenneth Morgan, with whom Rattigan had been in love.

Naked Masks: Five Plays


Luigi Pirandello - 1952
    His modern and sensationally original plays dramatize with force and eloquence the isolation of the individual from society and from himself.The editor, Eric Bentley, is an international theater authority. In addition to the Introduction and the biographical and bibliographical material in the Appendices, Mr. Bentley has prepared for this volume the first English translations of the play LiolĂ  and Pirandello's important "Preface" to Six Characters in Search of an Author.Included Plays: LiolĂ  It Is So! (If You Think So) Henry IV Six Characters in Search of an Author Each in His Own Way

Outward Bound


Sutton Vane - 1952
    Vane's play, set in the lounge of a small ocean liner, casts a collection of people on a fateful journey across the Styx with an ordinary boat steward as their Charon. At first they do not realize they are dead, but when they are finally convinced that this is no ordinary journey, they decide to combine forces for the purpose of meeting the Examiner, who is to come aboard at the end of the journey. When the Examiner sorts out the sheep from the goats, there are surprises in store for the passengers. Two of them, a young couple, are not called: they are half-ways, two suicides who refuse to face life. Now, with this momentous choice before them, they finally decide to return to the world, which they may face with greater courage.

A Masque of Aesop


Robertson Davies - 1952
    Play by Robertson Davies.