Bücher von Amnon Kabatchnik

Volume 2 concentrates on trial plays mounted in the twentieth century. The first decade featured notable dramas by Leo Tolstoy (The Living Corpse, Russia, 1900), Alexander Bisson (Madame X, France, 1908), and John Galsworthy (Justice, England, 1910). The trend continued with authors of the main stream penning plays populated with judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, jurors, witnesses, and the accused, often charged with murder in the first degree -- Elmer Rice, Ayn Rand, Ernst Toller, W. Somerset Maugham, Richard Wright, Maxwell Anderson, and Arthur Miller. Herman Wouk, Jean Genet, Aldous Huxley, William Faulkner, William Saroyan, James Baldwin, Terence Rattigan, Jeffrey Archer, Ariel Dorfman, David Henry Hwang, Aaron Sorkin, others.Veteran mystery writers joined the fray, concocting courtroom melodramas. Among them were Gaston Leroux (The Mystery of the Yellow Room, 1912), A.E.W Mason (No Other Tiger, 1928), Agatha Christie Witness for the Prosecution, 1953), and Henry Cecil (Settled Out of Court, 1960).Quite a few plays were inspired by real-life events. Caponsacchi (1926) is based on a poem by Robert Browning, depicting a double murder among the clergy in Rome of 1698. Sophie Treadwell's expressionist drama Machinal (1928) focuses on a sensational 1927 murder case in Queens, New York, in which an ordinary stenographer kills her much older husband when she feels stifled at home. A Pin to See the Peepshow (1951), by F. Tennyson Jesse and H.M. Harwood, introduces a twenty-eight-year-old London millinery who, with the aid of her younger lover, plans to eliminate a bossy husband. On the evening of October 3, 1922, he is found stabbed to death on a side road.The entries, presented chronologically, include a plot synopsis, production data, opinions by critics, and biographical sketches of playwrights and key actors-directors.

Volume 2 concentrates on trial plays mounted in the twentieth century. The first decade featured notable dramas by Leo Tolstoy (The Living Corpse, Russia, 1900), Alexander Bisson (Madame X, France, 1908), and John Galsworthy (Justice, England, 1910). The trend continued with authors of the main stream penning plays populated with judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, jurors, witnesses, and the accused, often charged with murder in the first degree -- Elmer Rice, Ayn Rand, Ernst Toller, W. Somerset Maugham, Richard Wright, Maxwell Anderson, and Arthur Miller. Herman Wouk, Jean Genet, Aldous Huxley, William Faulkner, William Saroyan, James Baldwin, Terence Rattigan, Jeffrey Archer, Ariel Dorfman, David Henry Hwang, Aaron Sorkin, others.Veteran mystery writers joined the fray, concocting courtroom melodramas. Among them were Gaston Leroux (The Mystery of the Yellow Room, 1912), A.E.W Mason (No Other Tiger, 1928), Agatha Christie Witness for the Prosecution, 1953), and Henry Cecil (Settled Out of Court, 1960).Quite a few plays were inspired by real-life events. Caponsacchi (1926) is based on a poem by Robert Browning, depicting a double murder among the clergy in Rome of 1698. Sophie Treadwell's expressionist drama Machinal (1928) focuses on a sensational 1927 murder case in Queens, New York, in which an ordinary stenographer kills her much older husband when she feels stifled at home. A Pin to See the Peepshow (1951), by F. Tennyson Jesse and H.M. Harwood, introduces a twenty-eight-year-old London millinery who, with the aid of her younger lover, plans to eliminate a bossy husband. On the evening of October 3, 1922, he is found stabbed to death on a side road.The entries, presented chronologically, include a plot synopsis, production data, opinions by critics, and biographical sketches of playwrights and key actors-directors.

One of the world's most well known fictional characters, Sherlock Holmes first appeared in print in 1887. The detective was featured in four novels and 56 short stories written by his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Within a decade of his creation Sherlock Holmes made his theatrical debut, first in a couple of obscure productions and soon in the celebrated play adapted by and starring William Gillette. Through the 20th century and beyond, the fictional detective featured in dozens of plays, not to mention radio programs, films, and television shows.In Sherlock Holmes on Stage, Amnon Kabatchnik cites the many theatrical appearances of the great detective since his debut in a one-act musical satire in November 1893. Divided into three sections, this book focuses on plays written or cowritten by Conan Doyle, one-act productions, and plays written by other authors-either adaptations of the novels and stories or original works. Within these sections, each entry is arranged in chronological order and provides a plot synopsis, production details, and other unique features. Some entries identify principal actors and provide biographical sketches of the playwrights, as well as those actors who made a lasting impression as the fictional sleuth. The book also includes several appendixes that focus on special productions, plays that feature variations of the Holmes character, and a list of acting editions.