Published: May 1, 1998
Type: Short Plays and Essays
The Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder Volume II includes Wilder’s collection of one-acts, The Angel That Troubled the Waters and Other Plays, along with two previously unpublished plays—The Unerring Instinct and The Marriage We Deplore. This volume also brings back one of Wilder’s most remarkable and least-known full-length plays, The Alcestiad, an inventive retelling of the ancient Greek legend of Alcestis, who gave her life for her husband Admetus and was brought back from hell by Hercules. The volume is rounded out by Wilder’s exemplary essay, “Some Thoughts on Playwriting.”
Table of Contents
Preface
by A. Tappan Wilder
Introduction
by A.R. Gurney
Part I
The Angel that Troubled the Waters and Other Plays
Three-Minute Plays for Three Persons and The Marriage we Deplore
Foreword
by Thornton Wilder
— Nascuntur Poetae
— Proserpina and the Devil
— Fanny Otcott
— Brother Fire
— The Penny That Beauty Spent
— The Angel on the Ship
— The Message and Jehanne
— Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came
— Centaurs
— Leviathan
— And the Sea Shall Give Up Its Dead
— Now the Servant’s Name Was Malchus
— Mozart and the Gray Steward
— Hast Thou Considered My Servant Job?
— The Flight into Egypt
— The Angel That Troubled the Waters
The Marriage We Deplore
Part II
The Unerring Instinct
A Play in One Act
Part III
“The Emporium”
Scenes from “The Emporium”
Notes Toward “The Emporium”
Part IV
The Alcestiad with its Satyr Play The Drunken Sisters
Foreword
by Isabel Wilder
Notes on The Alcestiad
by Thornton Wilder
— The Alcestiad
— Transition from The Alcestiad to The Drunken Sisters
— The Drunken Sisters
Some Thoughts on Playwriting
by Thornton Wilder
Bibliographic and Production Notes
For further information on the works within The Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder Volume II, please visit the Bibliography.
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