This paper provides a review of a production of Aeschylus’s play The Persians by New York’s CITI Company in the Getty Villa’s Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman Theater, Los Angeles, in September 2014. It focuses on the message of the play, three aspects of its production, and its universal worth. The...

Introduction If Henrik Ibsen is known for any single contribution to theater, it is his commitment to exploring dangerous ideas and realities uncomfortable to the public. A Doll's House deals with the injustice of gender roles, as Ghosts is centered on sexually transmitted diseases damaging families. Ibsen is always concerned...

The character of Willy Loman in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman is a montage of the millions of working class men thrown into the accelerating economy and increasing consumer-based culture of mid-twentieth century America. The play is set in the late 1940s, as the American economy is enjoying a...

Susan Glaspell’s one-act play “Trifles” takes place in a farmhouse where a man has just died. The county attorney, the sheriff, a neighbor, and the neighbor and sheriff’s wives are all gathered in the house and Mrs. Wright, the wife of the man who has died, is accused of his...

In his 1964 book The Life of the Drama, Eric Bentley introduces the reader to the intricate details, dirty secrets, and unacknowledged joys of the theater. As a writer, Bentley has been quite prolific, with almost a dozen books and several plays. Born in England 1916, Bentley attended Oxford University...