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Eight Modern Plays: Authoritative Texts of the Wild Duck, Three Sisters, Candida, the Ghost Sonata, Six Characters in Search of an Author, Long Day'
This Norton Critical Edition presents some of the most important voices in modern drama and, through the inclusion of supporting materials, places each play in its proper intellectual, artistic, and historical context. Included here are the complete texts of eight major plays by eight major playwrights: Henrik Ibsen’s The Wild Duck , Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters , George Bernard Shaw’s Candida , August Strindberg’s The Ghost Sonata , Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author , Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night , Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children , and Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days .
The most accurate and readable translations have been chosen for plays originally in foreign languages, including a new translation of Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author by Anthony Caputi, based on the definitive Italian text of 1925.
Each play has been carefully annotated for the student reader―foreign words and phrases are translated, allusions beyond the range of general knowledge are explained, and historical material is included as needed.
A comprehensive "Backgrounds and Criticism" section provides supporting materials by each playwright represented―letters, essays, authors’ notes―as well as a broad sampling of critical reviews and interpretations for each play.
A Selected Bibliography is also included.
The most accurate and readable translations have been chosen for plays originally in foreign languages, including a new translation of Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author by Anthony Caputi, based on the definitive Italian text of 1925.
Each play has been carefully annotated for the student reader―foreign words and phrases are translated, allusions beyond the range of general knowledge are explained, and historical material is included as needed.
A comprehensive "Backgrounds and Criticism" section provides supporting materials by each playwright represented―letters, essays, authors’ notes―as well as a broad sampling of critical reviews and interpretations for each play.
A Selected Bibliography is also included.
640 pages, Paperback
First published April 17, 1991
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 15, 2025
I was so excited to pick up Eight Modern Plays: A Norton Critical Edition, edited by Anthony Francis Caputi. The main thing that I wanted to get from this collection was a sense of what modernism is in relation to drama and some of the most prolific playwrights of the era are within this collection. The following "review" is composed of my immediate thoughts after reading each of the plays the past eight days. I added all the ratings together to come up with my final star-rating of this collection. However, my biggest takeaway from this is that it's an important piece of theatrical and drama studies. Besides Ibsen, I'm reading these playwrights for the very first time.
The Wild Duck (1884) by Henrik Ibsen:
Rating: 5 out of 5
I just read The Wild Duck by Henrik Ibsen and it reaffirmed my hatred for men. This is only my second time reading Ibsen, I was previously only familiar with A Doll's House (where I also hated the men in that). Hedda Gabler is now on my radar thanks to the 2025 Nia DaCosta film Hedda starring Tessa Thompson. Long story short, an idealistic man with a moral complex hates his father because he believes he pushed his mother to an early death due to an affair with their maid. He sees his old classmate at a party who happens to be the son of a now-disgraced former business partner of his father. He discovers that this classmate is married to that maid and lives "a life built upon lies." He makes it his mission to expose the truth to this strange family who chooses to ignore the skeletons in their closet. The play takes a bit of a sad turn because the family keeps a wild duck who was shot and nursed the duck back to health, even though this duck lives a crippled existence in a dark attic which is such poignant symbolism for this family. Things end tragically once the truth is revealed to this family and it can be perfectly summed up with this quote:
"Deprive the average human being of his life-lie, and you rob him of his happiness."
Anyway, this was exquisite.
Three Sisters (1901) by Anton Chekhov:
Rating: 5 out of 5
I've read a lot of contemporary Russian literature inspired by Anton Chekhov but this is my first time reading him. It was not initially striking but as time goes on, I'm more impressed by it. The Prozorov family live in a provincial Russian garrison town. Olga is a school teacher, Masha is a married former concert pianist, and Irena is the baby of the family. The three sisters live with their brother Andrey who is the only man in the family. This domestic drama starts off very slice-of-life-ish but it soon becomes a web of deceit, infidelity, manipulation, obsession and eventually ends in tragedy after a literal duel. When Andrey marries Natasha, the family's life starts to go off the rails. There are two major affairs in this play and everyone was miserable, depressed, volatile, and suicidal. The end feels like a hangover after a crazy party.
Candida (1894) by George Bernard Shaw:
Rating: 3 out of 5
My first George Bernard Shaw had no shortage of wit in Candida. I was entertained by the word play of Act I and by the introduction of the titular character. A socialist clergyman is married to Candida, a very sexy woman who gets a lot of male attention. After some time away in the country, she returns with a young poet who says he's in love with her. The play is much more philosophical and dives into what women want out of love and marriage. While finely written, I didn't connect with this one as much. It's a bit too dated for me but the dialogue was sharp and I enjoyed a couple of the characters here.
The Ghost Sonata (1907) by August Strindberg:
Rating: 4 out of 5
I was excited to read this chamber play by August Strindberg because he seemed like a bit of a character. While The Ghost Sonata is the shortest play in the collection, so far it has been the most complex in terms of plot. The uncertainty of what's real or a dream was an aspect that was truly delightful. This play centers around a young man who idealizes the lives of the inhabitants of a stylish apartment in Stockholm. He meets a benefactor, an old man who shows him how to get inside the apartment. In order to do this, the young man must go to an opera called "The Valkyrie" before entering. Once inside, he discovers that things are not what they seem. A beautiful young woman turns into a mummy, a vampiric cook sucks out all of the food's nourishment before serving it, and people sit in silence to bask in their misfortune. People are essentially held captive with their souls fed upon. I tore through this play because it was very engaging. When religion and sin were mentioned, I sat up a little straighter because I wanted to know what Strindberg had to say about them. Reading this made me think of more of a silent film format, it was like Nosferatu or something... a silent symphony of horrors. It could get a little clunky at times to say that it's so short but it's one that will stick in my mind for a long time.
Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921) by Luigi Pirandello:
Rating: 3 out of 5
So this one was a frustrating one, I cannot lie. Luigi Pirandello wrote what has been described as an "absurdist metatheatrical" play about the relationship among authors, their characters, and theatre practitioners. This was a bit much for me, I wanted to enjoy it because it started very funny. I'm the type of person who enjoys meta experiences like movies that are about making movies, books about books, and plays about plays. My favorite characters in this were the Director , the Prompter, and the Stage Manager because it was like those skits on Instagram about theater people. I know that most plays are meant to be seen performed so there's that divide but I'm usually okay with reading them. Pirandello has big ideas and made big swings and I really enjoyed the Italian style melodrama embedded in this but this was a struggle. It's one that I will need to revisit in the future and I'm not necessarily mad about that.
Long Day's Journey into Night (1956) by Eugene O'Neill:
Rating: 5 out of 5
Written between 1939-1941. Wow wow wow. My GOAT Pauline Kael called this "the finest work of American theater" and I can understand why. This was an openly autobiographical play by Eugene O'Neill and performed 26 or so years after writing it because O'Neill only wanted it performed after his death which happened in 1953. It takes place on a day in Connecticut in 1912. Here, the character "Edmund" is a stand-in for O'Neill while the characters Jamie, Tyrone, and Mary represent O'Neill's older brother and parents, respectively. I love family dynamics and working through family drama, bitterness, resentment, and unfulfilled lives. Each of the members of the Tyrone family blame each other for their own misgivings. The mother comes from a deeply religious Irish Catholic upbringing and regrets giving up on becoming a nun to marry an old-school actor. Mary has turned to "dope" and lives in a separate reality. The older brother Jamie rebels by working on Broadway as an actor and drinking and whoring his way through life while Edmund is sickly with consumption that no one wants to be honest about. As things began to unfold in the play, I was stunned by the unflinchingly honest take on family life. Its construction is masterful in the ability to make the audience understand exactly who these characters are early on. It's just... so impressive and ahead of its time while also reminding me of plays by Tennessee Williams who was perfect at showing the Southern family dynamic.
Mother Courage and Her Children (1939) by Bertolt Brecht:
Rating: 2 out of 5
So, I know this is anti-fascist, anti-war, and written in 1939 which is when Nazi Germany invaded Poland... Bertolt Brecht was against Hitler and fled when he came into power. This play is set in the 1600s during the Thirty Years War instead of modern time but it talks about the horrors of war and is more of an epic. Oskar Eustis considers Mother Courage to be the greatest play of the 20th century, and perhaps also the greatest anti-war play of all time but to my understanding, this production is rare in American theater. I can see why. So far, I connected to this play the least and it was the least enjoyable for me to read. I'm not hugely into war stories in general. I don't like war movies and I don't like books about war either. I can understand why this was a hit and why it continues to be one in Europe but maybe I'm too young and American for this.
Happy Days (1961) by Samuel Beckett:
Rating: 4 out of 5
This is a technical masterpiece and a feat that only someone like Samuel Beckett could have pulled off. It was challenging and came off like it would be incomprehensible at first but once I got into the flow of it, I really enjoyed it. What I like the most about it is the fact that it centers on a woman and it gives a female actor an opportunity to play a character that is on the same level as a Hamlet or a Willy Loman. Winnie is buried to her waist and follows her daily routine while doing meditations on happier days and her husband Willie. By the end of the second act, she is buried to her neck and continuing to speak about those happy days. The play is quite bleak and focuses on the passing of time. We know that at some point Winnie will be buried alive and her choosing to do nothing about this is spine-tingling. It's another one of those plays that would work better if I saw it instead of reading it. Still, being able to read it showed how talented Beckett was and for my first time reading him, I was very impressed.
The Wild Duck (1884) by Henrik Ibsen:
Rating: 5 out of 5
I just read The Wild Duck by Henrik Ibsen and it reaffirmed my hatred for men. This is only my second time reading Ibsen, I was previously only familiar with A Doll's House (where I also hated the men in that). Hedda Gabler is now on my radar thanks to the 2025 Nia DaCosta film Hedda starring Tessa Thompson. Long story short, an idealistic man with a moral complex hates his father because he believes he pushed his mother to an early death due to an affair with their maid. He sees his old classmate at a party who happens to be the son of a now-disgraced former business partner of his father. He discovers that this classmate is married to that maid and lives "a life built upon lies." He makes it his mission to expose the truth to this strange family who chooses to ignore the skeletons in their closet. The play takes a bit of a sad turn because the family keeps a wild duck who was shot and nursed the duck back to health, even though this duck lives a crippled existence in a dark attic which is such poignant symbolism for this family. Things end tragically once the truth is revealed to this family and it can be perfectly summed up with this quote:
"Deprive the average human being of his life-lie, and you rob him of his happiness."
Anyway, this was exquisite.
Three Sisters (1901) by Anton Chekhov:
Rating: 5 out of 5
I've read a lot of contemporary Russian literature inspired by Anton Chekhov but this is my first time reading him. It was not initially striking but as time goes on, I'm more impressed by it. The Prozorov family live in a provincial Russian garrison town. Olga is a school teacher, Masha is a married former concert pianist, and Irena is the baby of the family. The three sisters live with their brother Andrey who is the only man in the family. This domestic drama starts off very slice-of-life-ish but it soon becomes a web of deceit, infidelity, manipulation, obsession and eventually ends in tragedy after a literal duel. When Andrey marries Natasha, the family's life starts to go off the rails. There are two major affairs in this play and everyone was miserable, depressed, volatile, and suicidal. The end feels like a hangover after a crazy party.
Candida (1894) by George Bernard Shaw:
Rating: 3 out of 5
My first George Bernard Shaw had no shortage of wit in Candida. I was entertained by the word play of Act I and by the introduction of the titular character. A socialist clergyman is married to Candida, a very sexy woman who gets a lot of male attention. After some time away in the country, she returns with a young poet who says he's in love with her. The play is much more philosophical and dives into what women want out of love and marriage. While finely written, I didn't connect with this one as much. It's a bit too dated for me but the dialogue was sharp and I enjoyed a couple of the characters here.
The Ghost Sonata (1907) by August Strindberg:
Rating: 4 out of 5
I was excited to read this chamber play by August Strindberg because he seemed like a bit of a character. While The Ghost Sonata is the shortest play in the collection, so far it has been the most complex in terms of plot. The uncertainty of what's real or a dream was an aspect that was truly delightful. This play centers around a young man who idealizes the lives of the inhabitants of a stylish apartment in Stockholm. He meets a benefactor, an old man who shows him how to get inside the apartment. In order to do this, the young man must go to an opera called "The Valkyrie" before entering. Once inside, he discovers that things are not what they seem. A beautiful young woman turns into a mummy, a vampiric cook sucks out all of the food's nourishment before serving it, and people sit in silence to bask in their misfortune. People are essentially held captive with their souls fed upon. I tore through this play because it was very engaging. When religion and sin were mentioned, I sat up a little straighter because I wanted to know what Strindberg had to say about them. Reading this made me think of more of a silent film format, it was like Nosferatu or something... a silent symphony of horrors. It could get a little clunky at times to say that it's so short but it's one that will stick in my mind for a long time.
Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921) by Luigi Pirandello:
Rating: 3 out of 5
So this one was a frustrating one, I cannot lie. Luigi Pirandello wrote what has been described as an "absurdist metatheatrical" play about the relationship among authors, their characters, and theatre practitioners. This was a bit much for me, I wanted to enjoy it because it started very funny. I'm the type of person who enjoys meta experiences like movies that are about making movies, books about books, and plays about plays. My favorite characters in this were the Director , the Prompter, and the Stage Manager because it was like those skits on Instagram about theater people. I know that most plays are meant to be seen performed so there's that divide but I'm usually okay with reading them. Pirandello has big ideas and made big swings and I really enjoyed the Italian style melodrama embedded in this but this was a struggle. It's one that I will need to revisit in the future and I'm not necessarily mad about that.
Long Day's Journey into Night (1956) by Eugene O'Neill:
Rating: 5 out of 5
Written between 1939-1941. Wow wow wow. My GOAT Pauline Kael called this "the finest work of American theater" and I can understand why. This was an openly autobiographical play by Eugene O'Neill and performed 26 or so years after writing it because O'Neill only wanted it performed after his death which happened in 1953. It takes place on a day in Connecticut in 1912. Here, the character "Edmund" is a stand-in for O'Neill while the characters Jamie, Tyrone, and Mary represent O'Neill's older brother and parents, respectively. I love family dynamics and working through family drama, bitterness, resentment, and unfulfilled lives. Each of the members of the Tyrone family blame each other for their own misgivings. The mother comes from a deeply religious Irish Catholic upbringing and regrets giving up on becoming a nun to marry an old-school actor. Mary has turned to "dope" and lives in a separate reality. The older brother Jamie rebels by working on Broadway as an actor and drinking and whoring his way through life while Edmund is sickly with consumption that no one wants to be honest about. As things began to unfold in the play, I was stunned by the unflinchingly honest take on family life. Its construction is masterful in the ability to make the audience understand exactly who these characters are early on. It's just... so impressive and ahead of its time while also reminding me of plays by Tennessee Williams who was perfect at showing the Southern family dynamic.
Mother Courage and Her Children (1939) by Bertolt Brecht:
Rating: 2 out of 5
So, I know this is anti-fascist, anti-war, and written in 1939 which is when Nazi Germany invaded Poland... Bertolt Brecht was against Hitler and fled when he came into power. This play is set in the 1600s during the Thirty Years War instead of modern time but it talks about the horrors of war and is more of an epic. Oskar Eustis considers Mother Courage to be the greatest play of the 20th century, and perhaps also the greatest anti-war play of all time but to my understanding, this production is rare in American theater. I can see why. So far, I connected to this play the least and it was the least enjoyable for me to read. I'm not hugely into war stories in general. I don't like war movies and I don't like books about war either. I can understand why this was a hit and why it continues to be one in Europe but maybe I'm too young and American for this.
Happy Days (1961) by Samuel Beckett:
Rating: 4 out of 5
This is a technical masterpiece and a feat that only someone like Samuel Beckett could have pulled off. It was challenging and came off like it would be incomprehensible at first but once I got into the flow of it, I really enjoyed it. What I like the most about it is the fact that it centers on a woman and it gives a female actor an opportunity to play a character that is on the same level as a Hamlet or a Willy Loman. Winnie is buried to her waist and follows her daily routine while doing meditations on happier days and her husband Willie. By the end of the second act, she is buried to her neck and continuing to speak about those happy days. The play is quite bleak and focuses on the passing of time. We know that at some point Winnie will be buried alive and her choosing to do nothing about this is spine-tingling. It's another one of those plays that would work better if I saw it instead of reading it. Still, being able to read it showed how talented Beckett was and for my first time reading him, I was very impressed.
February 28, 2017
Read some of these plays for my lit class. It was lit.
Read
September 14, 2009Eight Modern Plays: Authoritative Texts of the Wild Duck, Three Sisters, Candida, the Ghost Sonata, Six Characters in Search of an Author, Long Day' (Norton Critical Editions) (1991)
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June 22, 201730 Copies
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