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Jean-Paul Sartre
Sartre was convinced that people should examine their situations and make decisions that permit them to act meaningfully in accordance with their own values. He wrote plays that set their ideas into dramatic action. Among Sartre’s plays, the best known are The Flies (1943) and No Exit (1944) Brockett, Oscar G.. The Essential Theatre (p. 191). Cengage Learning. Kindle Edition. -
Albert Camus
Among Camus’s plays, the best known are Caligula (written 1938, produced 1945) and The Just Assassins (1949). Although his ideas broke from tradition, his plays expressed them using traditional dramatic structure: showing a protagonist facing a problem, pursuing it through a set of complications to a point of crisis, and making choices that permit a clear resolution. -
The Glass Menagerie
The Glass Menagerie, one-act drama by Tennessee Williams, produced in 1944 and published in 1945. The Glass Menagerie launched Williams’s career and is considered by some critics to be his finest drama. -
All My Sons
In a work of tremendous power, a love affair between Keller's son, Chris, and Ann Deever, Herbert's daughter, the bitterness of George Keller, who returns from the war to find his father in prison and his father's partner free, and the reaction of a son to his father's guilt escalate toward a climax of electrifying intensity. -
A Streetcar Named Desire
A Streetcar Named Desire is a play written by Tennessee Williams that opened on Broadway on December 3, 1947.[1] The play dramatises the life of Blanche DuBois, a Southern belle who, after encountering a series of personal losses, leaves her aristocratic background seeking refuge with her sister and brother-in-law in a dilapidated New Orleans apartment building. -
Death of a Salesman
Death of a Salesman, a play in “two acts and a requiem” by Arthur Miller, written in 1948 and produced in 1949. Miller won a Pulitzer Prize for the work, which he described as “the tragedy of a man who gave his life, or sold it” in pursuit of the American Dream.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Death-of-a-Salesman 7-8-20 -
Bierdman and the Firebugs
The original concept was similar to the final play—a parody about middle-class people who pride themselves on their generosity and open-mindedness to the point of being blind to the dangers that are threatening them. Frisch revised the diary entry into a radio play in 1951. The radio play turned out to be popular, so Frisch reworked it for the stage. The play was performed on stage for the first time in 1958. -
The Crucible
The Crucible, a four-act play by Arthur Miller, performed and published in 1953. Set in 1692 during the Salem witch trials, The Crucible is an examination of contemporary events in American politics during the era of fear and desire for conformity brought on by Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s sensational allegations of communist subversion in high places.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Crucible 7-8-2020 -
The Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
The play exposes the emotional lies governing relationships in the family of a wealthy Southern planter of humble origins. The patriarch, Big Daddy, is about to celebrate his 65th birthday. His two married sons, Gooper (Brother Man) and Brick, have returned for the occasion, the former with his pregnant wife and five children, the latter with his wife Margaret (Maggie). The interactions between Big Daddy, Brick, and Maggie form the substance of the play. -
The Visit
The play’s protagonist Claire, a multimillionaire, visits her hometown after an absence of many years and offers the residents great wealth if they will kill one of their leading citizens, Alfred, who had betrayed Claire shamefully many years before. In this morality play about vengeance and greed, the prospect of wealth is enough to corrupt the townspeople into agreeing to murder.
www.britannica.com 7-8-2020
