One-Act Plays by Modern Authors — A Reader’s Guide

The Editor’s Double Audience

Cohen’s preface reveals a tension between two readerships: the student who might otherwise drift toward 'trashy reading' and the teacher who needs a text that is both respectable and alive. The acknowledgments list a who’s who of early twentieth-century theatre figures—Harold Brighouse, Lord Dunsany, John Galsworthy, Lady Gregory, Percy MacKaye—suggesting the editor sought authors with established credentials. Yet the preface also admits that until recently, few high school texts were less than fifty years old. The collection thus positions itself as a corrective, but the plays themselves do not always cooperate. The excerpt from Wurzel-Flummery shows a character who explicitly mocks the very ideals the preface seems to champion, creating an ironic gap between editorial intent and dramatic content.

Money, Ideals, and the Stage Direction

The excerpt from Wurzel-Flummery revolves around a single moral pivot: Richard’s refusal of a fortune, then his capitulation. The dialogue is crisp and ironic, with characters using money as a test of integrity. Crawshaw, the father, admits Richard’s arguments are 'all perfectly true' but insists on compromise for the sake of others. The stage directions—'beaten,' 'shaking his head sadly,' 'God help me if I ever stop thinking so'—underscore the emotional cost. Meanwhile, the solicitor Clifton treats the whole affair as raw material for a play: 'I wonder how a rough scenario would strike the managers.' This self-referential moment blurs the line between the characters’ dilemma and the playwright’s craft, hinting that the tension between principle and practicality is itself a theatrical device.

The Missing Context of the Full Collection

Because only one play excerpt is provided, the anthology’s overall range remains unclear. The table of contents is absent, so we cannot confirm which other authors appear beyond the acknowledgments list. The preface mentions a 'Manchester school of dramatists' emerging from Miss Horniman’s Gaiety Theatre, but the excerpt does not illustrate regional drama. The editorial notes on staging—references to the Beechwood Theatre, the Garden Theatre, and Robert Edmond Jones’s designs—suggest a practical interest in production, yet the text itself offers no performance history. Readers should approach the collection as a curated sample of early twentieth-century one-act plays, but the editor’s criteria for inclusion—beyond contemporaneity—remain implicit. The tension between the preface’s earnest pedagogy and the play’s cynical humor may be the collection’s most consistent feature.

The anthology invites comparison between its stated aims and the plays’ actual content. Readers might consider how each play handles the gap between public ideals and private compromise—a theme that emerges strongly in the excerpt. The editorial apparatus, including the preface and acknowledgments, frames the collection as a teaching tool, but the plays themselves often resist simple moral lessons. Pay attention to how stage directions and asides undercut characters’ speeches, and note the recurring figure of the playwright or solicitor who comments on the action. These metatheatrical touches suggest that the collection’s modernism lies not just in its dates but in its self-awareness.

Reading that 1921 collection, I kept noticing how the characters wrestle with choosing between what feels right and what’s expected. It reminded me of something quieter, more personal—the way that old volume of The Romance of a Princess: A Comedy; and Other Poems — Context and Discussion lingered with me, its ideals folding into compromise so gently I almost missed the ache. Both left that same tender echo.