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The scene is set in an English country house â" Hunstanton (Lady Hunstanton's property). The curtains open to the terrace where we are introduced to Lady Caroline who is engaging in conversation with Lady Huntstanton's American Puritan guest Hester Worsley. Other characters are introduced, including the flirtatious Mrs Allonby, the meek Lady Stutfield and Lady Caroline's submissive husband Sir John. They discuss frivolous matters and are later joined by the powerful, charming and charismatic gentleman, Lord Illingworth who has offered the post of secretary to the fortunate Gerald Arbuthnot. Gerald's mother is invited to join the party, and when she arrives she realises that Lord Illingworth is Gerald's father. She had an affair with him twenty years ago, became pregnant and he refused to marry her, making her a "fallen woman." She is reluctant to let Gerald become Illingworth's secretary, but doesn't tell Gerald her reasons behind her reluctance...

This Victorian comedy of manners sparkles with Wilde’s trademark repartee, epigrams, and witty dialogue. Arch-moralist Lady Windermere, shattered by the suspicion of her husband’s infidelity, contemplates running off with a roué until her rival illustrates the difference between morality and its appearance. A comic masterpiece, studded with humorous quips and clever paradoxes.

Oscar Wilde's brilliant play makes fun of the English upper classes with light-hearted satire and dazzling humour. It is 1890's England and two young gentlemen are being somewhat limited with the truth. To inject some excitement into their lives, Mr Worthing invents a brother, Earnest, as an excuse to leave his dull country life behind him to pursue the object of his desire, the ravishing Gwendolyn. While across town Algernon Montecrieff decides to take the name Earnest, when visiting Worthing's young ward Cecily. The real fun and confusion begins when the two end up together and their deceptions are in danger of being revealed.

No play in the modern theatre has so captured the imagination and heart of the American public as Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie. Menagerie was Williams's first popular success and launched the brilliant, if somewhat controversial, career of our pre-eminent lyric playwright. Since its premiere in Chicago in 1944, with the legendary Laurette Taylor in the role of Amanda, the play has been the bravura piece for great actresses from Jessica Tandy to Joanne Woodward, and is studied and performed in classrooms and theatres around the world. The Glass Menagerie (in the reading text the author preferred) is now available only in its New Directions Paperbook edition. A new introduction by prominent Williams scholar Robert Bray, editor of The Tennessee Williams Annual Review, reappraises the play more than half a century after it won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award: "More than fifty years after telling his story of a family whose lives form a triangle of quiet desperation, Williams's mellifluous voice still resonates deeply and universally." This edition of The Glass Menagerie also includes Williams's essay on the impact of sudden fame on a struggling writer, "The Catastrophe of Success," as well as a short section of Williams's own "Production Notes." The cover features the classic line drawing by Alvin Lustig, originally done for the 1949 New Directions edition.

The Pulitzer Prize and Drama Critics Circle Award winning play—reissued with an introduction by Arthur Miller ( Death of a Salesman and The Crucible ), and Williams' essay "The World I Live In." It is a very short list of 20th-century American plays that continue to have the same power and impact as when they first appeared—57 years after its Broadway premiere, Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire is one of those plays. The story famously recounts how the faded and promiscuous Blanche DuBois is pushed over the edge by her sexy and brutal brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski. Streetcar launched the careers of Marlon Brando, Jessica Tandy, Kim Hunter and Karl Malden, and solidified the position of Tennessee Williams as one of the most important young playwrights of his generation, as well as that of Elia Kazan as the greatest American stage director of the '40s and '50s. Who better than America's elder statesman of the theater, Williams' contemporary Arthur Miller, to write as a witness to the lightning that struck American culture in the form of A Streetcar Named Desire ? Miller's rich perspective on Williams' singular style of poetic dialogue, sensitive characters, and dramatic violence makes this a unique and valuable new edition of A Streetcar Named Desire . This definitive new edition will also include Williams' essay "The World I Live In," and a brief chronology of the author's life.

本卷包含契诃夫经典名剧《万尼亚舅舅》《三姊妹》和《樱桃园》，按创作时间排序，并收录焦菊隐写于1943年的《<樱桃园>译后记》。这三个剧本，虽然故事不同，所表达的都是契诃夫始终关注的主题：他憎恶十九世纪末俄国社会随处可见的、只知道用一些不连贯的空谈，对“未来”的空想，以充实当下空虚没落偷懒的生活的灰色的人群，他同情勤苦劳动却被毁灭了幸福和希望的另一群人，他用抒情诗一般的结构和台词、背景描述，创造了现代戏剧的开端。

本丛书将契诃夫戏剧作品的优秀中文译本结集，分四卷出版。本卷包含名剧《海鸥》和《伊凡诺夫》。喜剧《海鸥》描写乡村富家少女妮娜的爱情理想和遭遇，于1898年在莫斯科艺术剧院上演，获得空前成功，高翔着的海鸥形象成了莫斯科艺术剧院的院徽。《伊凡诺夫》是契诃夫的第一部戏剧力作。

《老妇还乡(插图本)》是以情节的双线节的双线对比发展为其基本结构的：一条是居伦人在贫穷中经不起金钱势力的引诱而良心被收买的过程，一条是男主人公伊尔在恐怖气氛的包围中逐渐认识到自己的罪过而终于以生命来赎罪的过程；前一条线索展示的是道德的不断下降，后一条线索展示的是道德的逐渐上升；前者导致的是喜剧的结局，后者导致的是悲剧的收场。这是一出典型的悲喜剧。剧中真实的细节描写杂以漫画式的夸张，滑稽的场面透露着庄严的气氛，轻松的言笑包含着尖刻的讽刺。

三幕话剧《茶馆》以北京一家大茶馆为背景，描写了清末、民初、抗战胜利以后三个历史时期的北京生活风貌，深刻地写出了王利发等人的真实命运。

本剧讲述的是黑夜发生的故事.交际花陈白露的客厅上穿梭往来着大都市各类角色,银行家耿于金钱,小职员窥伺向上爬的机会,小文书一家惨死,富女人携面首出双入对,黑社会凶狠残暴,被侮辱、被损害的妓女饮血吞声……在这该诅咒的地狱中，陈白露良心未泯却无力自拔，他们都将随黑夜消失，而隐于背景、高唱夯歌的工人们暗示了伟大日出的到来。

《先锋戏剧档案》包括《思凡》《阿Q同志》《一个无政府主义者的意外死亡》《恋爱的犀牛》等八部原创剧本以及30余部剧作的节目单、说明书、剧照、导演的话等等原始材料，不但纪录了先锋戏剧创作过程，同时还展示了近十年来中国年轻戏剧创作者的舞台成果，突显了戏剧发展实验创新之路。

《长别离》的主要内容是：大家都在看着。在黛蕾丝和流浪人之间的闲人当中，有人接替黛蕾丝叫喊。但他没有听见近乎发狂的妻子的喊声。在位“顾客”与他擦肩而过，回头叫他。阿拜尔•朗格洛瓦转身，在沉沉黑夜里，他缓慢地、异常缓慢地举起双手，就像一个被判处死刑的人。人们停止叫喊。黛蕾丝沉默了。阿拜尔•朗格洛瓦仍然举着双手，他完全僵住了，像等候枪决一样，他在等候。由于他所等待的枪决并未发生，他是否又产生了希望呢？突然，他拼命地朝塞纳河边逃去。一些旁观者去追他。黛蕾丝立在原地未动。远处传来汽车刹车声，是末班车吗？