Born in 1855 and put to work in the family law business at the age of ten, Arthur Wing Pinero deserted middle-class respectability to become an actor. He learnt his trade in the old provincial stock system before he joined Henry Irving's company at the Lyceum, and began to write plays that were to change the face of British theatre.;In 1893 The Second Mrs Tanqueray was acclaimed across Europe as the most remarkable English play of the second half of the nineteenth century. The Magistrate is now recognized as the foundation stone of British comedy. George Bernard Shaw's envious personal campaign against him helped to undermine Pinero's pre-eminence, but today his work is emerging from neglect as fresh and interesting as it ever was - and a great deal more stageworthy than much that was written by Shaw. These four plays represent a unique dramatic voice, stringent and incisive, whose insights are clothed in exuberant, energetic, and many-sided theatricality.;This book is intended for students from sixth-form upwards, studying Theatre Studies and Literature/Drama of the nineteenth century.

Comedy

Arthur W. Pinero

Characters: 10 male, 8 female

4 interior scenes

Actress Rose Trelawny falls in love with the grandson of a snobbish knight. Unfortunately her visit to her lover's home is a humiliating failure and she finds she can no longer act. But the elderly tyrant relents, unexpectedly developing an interest in the theatre; he even finances a play and finally gives his blessing to Rose and his grandson

FEE: Public domain.

The Magistrate is a farce by the English playwright Sir Arthur Wing Pinero. The plot concerns a respectable magistrate who finds himself caught up in a series of scandalous events that almost cause his disgrace. The first production opened at the Court Theatre in London on 21 March 1885.

When Aubrey Tanqueray marries for the second time, he knows that his new wife, Paula, is a 'woman with a past'. But he has no idea how that past will catch up with him in the end. More probing than Oscar Wilde, more accessible than Ibsen, Pinero's The Second Mrs Tanqueray (1893) is one of the masterpieces of the Victorian theatre: sexy, dramatic, funny and very moving.-6 women, 5 men

'That is what marriage gives - the right to destroy years and years of life.' Venice, Easter 1895. In the cafes around St Mark's Square, all the gossip among the English ex-pat community is about two mysterious arrivals in the city. Agnes Ebbsmith is a young widow with a scandalous past. Travelling with her is Lucas Cleeve, an up-and-coming Tory MP who has abandoned his wife in London. Defying convention, Agnes and Lucas are refusing to marry, and living in a 'compact' together. But before long their peace is shattered by the arrival of Lucas's aristocratic family from London. The Notorious Mrs Ebbsmith is a dramatic, entertaining,and utterly enthralling play by one of the greatest Victorian dramatists. This playtext, slightly adapted from the original,was prepared for its first ever revival, presented by Primavera at Jermyn Street Theatre in 2014. The Notorious Mrs Ebbsmith was last performed by Mrs Patrick Campbell in the West End in 1895. With an introduction to the play and its historical context by Dr Sos Eltis.