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The Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder, Volume II
The second and concluding volume of Thornton Wilder's short plays.
- GenresDrama
360 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
About the author
Thornton Wilder
213 books536 followersThornton Niven Wilder was an American playwright and novelist. He received three Pulitzer Prizes, one for his novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey and two for his plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, and a National Book Award for his novel The Eighth Day.
For more see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thornton...
For more see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thornton...
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 7, 2023
The second volume of Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder is more of a mixed bag than the first. On the one hand there are tiny "playlets" of just a page or two. These were some of Wilder's first experiments in writing theater starting in his college years. Then the book ends with "The Alcestiad," a full three-act drama (i.e. not a short play by any definition).
The playlets show future promise but are very slight. "The Alcestiad" had by far the most interest for me. Wilder took the story from Greek mythology and was loosely inspired by the structure of ancient Greek tragedy. Traditionally, the Athenian dramatists presented their work in trilogies, followed by a more comic satyr play. Only one complete trilogy (Aeschylus's Oresteia) has survived, along with a single complete satyr play (Euripides's Cyclops), which limits our understanding of the forms. But here in "The Alcestiad," Wilder has written a linked story in three acts, a faint echo of the trilogy structure of the Oresteia, followed by a somewhat connected satyr play ("The Drunken Sisters"). In fact, "The Drunken Sisters" also appeared in the first volume of Wilder's Collected Short Plays, but it worked much better in this context.
I'm glad to have surveyed Thornton Wilder's shorter (and one longer) work as a dramatist. Now I would like to read the plays he's actually best known for, like "Our Town" and "The Skin of Our Teeth."
The playlets show future promise but are very slight. "The Alcestiad" had by far the most interest for me. Wilder took the story from Greek mythology and was loosely inspired by the structure of ancient Greek tragedy. Traditionally, the Athenian dramatists presented their work in trilogies, followed by a more comic satyr play. Only one complete trilogy (Aeschylus's Oresteia) has survived, along with a single complete satyr play (Euripides's Cyclops), which limits our understanding of the forms. But here in "The Alcestiad," Wilder has written a linked story in three acts, a faint echo of the trilogy structure of the Oresteia, followed by a somewhat connected satyr play ("The Drunken Sisters"). In fact, "The Drunken Sisters" also appeared in the first volume of Wilder's Collected Short Plays, but it worked much better in this context.
I'm glad to have surveyed Thornton Wilder's shorter (and one longer) work as a dramatist. Now I would like to read the plays he's actually best known for, like "Our Town" and "The Skin of Our Teeth."
September 28, 2007
Wonderful, wonderful. Some elements of the writing may seem dated (that "folksyness") but really holds up incredibly well. Pullman Car Hiawatha absolutely takes the cake, symphonic structure, the musicality in the language, and so imaginatively conceived!
October 27, 2007
... i adore wilder. such a force of simple language and heavy handed symbolism. he moves you with little because it is the language of solitude and silence, of recriminations and regrets, of dreaming and nightmares... it is the realization of never stopping.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews