Fiction Books PDF EPUB MOBI

The Theatre of Ideas, a Burlesque Allegory, and Three One-act Plays

Downloads: Under 100
First published: 1915
Pages: 139

Read online EPUB Download Save

About this book

The Theatre of Ideas is a 1915 volume by Henry Arthur Jones (1851-1929), the English dramatist, pairing a satirical burlesque allegory on the contemporary stage with three one-act plays. The title piece mocks the theatre of ideas associated with Shaw, Granville Barker, and the new drama, presenting the struggle between commercial entertainment and intellectual theatre as a comic allegory; Jones, though himself a campaigner for the drama's literary dignity, kept a sceptic's distance from the problem-play movement's solemnity. The accompanying one-act plays show his command of the compressed form the music halls and triple bills demanded. The volume documents the Edwardian quarrel over what the English theatre should be, from a playwright who had fought on both sides. Free PDF download available on BDeBooks.

Fiction Books

About the author

Henry Arthur Jones

Henry Arthur Jones left school at twelve for a draper's shop and became, with Arthur Wing Pinero, the dramatist who pulled the English stage back towards seriousness in the 1880s and 1890s. The Silver King, a melodrama written with Henry Herman in 1882, made him enough money to write what he liked.