Excerpt from The Devil There are many sketches, framed and unframed, about the room - some statues, some heads, busts and a very elegant electric candelabra hanging in the middle of the room. The whole thing nu harmonious but artistic. Down stage on the R. A medium-sized table littered with books, maga zines and brie-a-brac; a large palette lies on the top of some books and scattered among the other things some tubes of paint and paint brushes. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Ferenc Molnár (Americanized name: Franz Molnar) was a Hungarian dramatist and novelist. During the World War II he emigrated to the United States to escape the Nazi persecution of Hungarian Jews.
Well, this was a disappointment. I am giving up after Act One. I need a play to capture me from the first line, and this one simply did not.
The plot is trite, even for its day, and nowhere near as captivating as Liliom, another play written by this author. That one eventually became the movie Carousel, and was stunning. This one is boring.
An artist, an old friend, her husband, and the Devil. Temptations, intrigues, the danger of losing wealth and security, not to mention (gasp) being embarrassed in front of Society. Sigh.
This 1908 play by the author of The Play’s the Thing, The Devil lacks the latter’s charm. I don’t know if that’s because Molnár was still searching for his voice when he wrote The Devil or if this is an example of how much a translator / adaptor can make or break a work (I read the Oliver Herford translation), but The Devil doesn’t wear its age well.
The plot is more or less that the devil comes and mucks with a bunch of people’s lives. It’s a conflict that’s been done in other stories with more success, so I can’t say I’m shocked The Devil isn’t well known over a century later. Not recommended.