Author Description

The first play in this volume is a perennial farce of self-deluded love which has delighted audiences for three centuries the last, a caustic parable of society today which won a coveted award for young writers. Only a collection of such scope and variety could demonstrate the full achievement of master playwrights within the challenging limits of one act. The differences in subject and technique are striking from the boisterous humanity of Chekhov's romp to the stark, brooding tragedy of Synge,from the scintillating paradoxes of adultery in Shaw to the dark undercurrents of Williams' Southern aristocracy. But comic, tragic, satiric or tender, these plays are alike in creating an indelible dramatic experience within the briefest compass of stage time.