LITMIR.BIZ

The nineteenth-century Southern writer (George Washington Cable) who wrote the stories on which this play is based was born in New Orleans, and the racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity of that great city impregnates all his work, and gives him a cast of eccentric and memorable characters worthy of Dickens. Dramatist Frank J. Morlock centers the action of his play around the Café des Exilés in the 1820s, and the square in front of it where all sorts of folks mix together. This setting gives a sort of unity to the actions of Cable's interesting characters–Anglo, French, Spanish, Indian, and Black–who brush against each other and sometimes intersect and interact. The result is a highly entertaining drama of the Old South–with a French accent!

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Émile Zola (1840-1902) was one of France's greatest novelists of the nineteenth century, being most famous as a writer for Nana (the story of a courtesan), and in the political world for his role in exposing the frame-up of Captain Dreyfus. However, he had limited success as a dramatist until he partnered with William Busnach, an Algerian Jew. This adaptation of the Zola novel of the same name is a powerful exposé of life among the working poor, and the ravaging effects of alcholism on average, decent folk. If fact, what's most striking in this play is how human the workers are, certainly not the «animals» described by opponents of Zola's works. The destruction of a family is portrayed with clinical realism, but also with sympathy and understanding, as each of the characters gradually emerges as a sympathetic (or at least understandable) person in his or her own right. First-rate drama by a master writer!

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After his death, Molière was gradually recognized in France as that country's most important dramatist. Along with this realization came a desire to write plays ABOUT the writer, his life on the stage, and his interaction with the other dramatists of his age, and also with King Louis XIV. Even Alexandre Dumas featured Molière as a character in his historical play, The Young Louis XIV. Molière himself was such a large, dynamic figure in real life that he made a perfect foil for later dramatists. Here are five plays by and about Molière: Molière at Ninon's, or, The Reading of Tartuffe, by René de Chazet and Jean-Baptiste Dubois; Scene Added for the Anniversary of Molière, by Charles Moreau; The King Is Waiting, by George Sand; Cyrano and Molière, by George Jubin; and The Love Doctor, by Molière. Great drama and great fun!

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Here are three French plays from the Enlightenment Period dealing with the subject of slavery. ISLE OF SLAVES, by Pierre de Marivaux, is the longest and most challenging of the three. It postulates an island in the ancient Greek world where the slaves have revolted and seized power, killing all of their former masters and declaring their independence. Now, any «masters» shipwrecked on their island are forced to live as slaves of their own slaves to impress upon them the wrongs they've committed. THE MERCHANT OF SMYRNA, by Nicolas Chamfort, and THE BEAUTIFUL SLAVE, by Antoine-Jean Dumaniant, both deal with the pain that Christian and Muslim lovers experience when one (or both) of them are captured and sold into slavery–and then are fortuitously freed by their new owners or through their own efforts. These dramas represent early moral judgments in the late eighteenth century on the evils of slavery, and as such, are important milestones in the history of European drama.

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In these three librettos, Philippe Quinault turns from classical opera to medieval legends–Renaud and Armida, Amadis and Oriana, and Angelica and Roland–exploring the tensions between love and glory. As usual, the dramatist relates his stories deftly with classic simplicity. In these adaptions of traditional medieval stories of romance, enchantment, monsters, and magic, either the heroine (Armida or Angelica) loves the hero she should hate, or the hero falls for an enemy enchantress, and has to be rescued from her clutches. The love «cure» is usually effected by means of magic or through the intervention of a fairy. Great entertainment from early French literature!

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This powerful, eloquent play moves like a Greek tragedy to its inevitable conclusion. Dumas's drama is based on an actual event–the assassination of Duke Alexander of Medici in 1537 by his cousin, Lorenzo. Lorenzino lures his relative to a trap under the pretext of providing him with a woman. He gets close to the Duke by pandering to his lusts, just so that he'll have the opportunity to kill him. His plan ultimately works, but results in the suicide of the woman Lorenzino loves, and the complete discrediting of the assassin in the public eye. Freedom from tyranny comes with a terrible price! A first-rate drama penned two years before The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers.

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Based on the classic novel by Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary tells the tale of Emma Bovary, who is romantic by nature, and believes herself the equal of the heroines depicted in the romantic novels she reads. When she moves to a rural town in France, she finds herself utterly bored by country and small-town life. Although her husband is a good man, Emma has no respect for him. Eventually she takes a lover, and wants him to give up everything for her, so they can run away together–but he fails to appear on the day set for their elopement. She then finds solace in the arms of a third man, but when this affair also collapses, she has nothing left to live for. A great tragedy of French life and customs, effectively dramatized by Gaston Baty!

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Based on the novel by Stendhal (Henri Beyle, 1783-1842), The Red and the Black tells the story of Julien Sorel, a talented and ambitious young peasant. Sorel manages to cynically and hypocritically manipulate those around him to gain a position as a secretary with a prominent Marquis–and to seduce his employer's beautiful daughter, Mathilde. But he doesn't love Mathilde–doesn't love anyone, really–and when he murders another woman with whom he's had an affair, the law inexorably grinds him in its gears. He refuses the assistance of his «wife,» and proudly goes to his rendezvous with La Guillotine. His death, after all, is the only real protest he can make! First-rate drama by a master playwright.

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Based on the novel by Russian writer Dmitry Merezhkovsky (1867-1941), Morlock's dramatic adaptation tells the tragic story of Russian Tsar Peter the Great's conflict with his only surviving son and heir, Tsarevitch Alexis. Peter, an autocrat who was determined to modernize Russia at all costs, dealt brutally with any opposition–but found his most stubborn and potent resistance in his own home in the person of Alexis. This was a battle of wills that could end in only one way, given the nature of the Tsar's personality and the enormous power that he wielded. The ultimate tragedy is that Peter loved his son, and Alexis his father–but neither could find a way in which to reconcile their political differences. Shades of the twenty-first century! A riveting psychodrama.

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Based on the Marquis de Sade's infamous novel of the same name, this new dramatic version of JUSTINE closely follows the original story, both in spirit and in action. De Sade, with his relentless logic, attempts to prove that «virtue» as practiced by most people actually contradicts nature. The innocent maiden Justine suffers one humiliation and setback after another in her futile quest to preserve her virtue and her virginity. No one–not the nobility, not the Church, not even her sister–will step forward to help her unceasing cries for help. Finally, even the Almighty Himself turns against her, fed up with her incessant whining.

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