Scenes from American Life

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Scenes from American Life (Masterplots II: Drama, Revised Edition)

At a glance:

The Play

Scenes from American Life is a collection of nearly forty short scenes connected by scraps of period music, each scene showing a glimpse of life in upper-middle-class Buffalo over the course of about fifty years. A few of the characters appear in more than one scene, but most do not. Most of the characters are not even named; each is instantly recognizable, however, by his or her type.

The play begins in the early 1930’s, with the entrance of a maid carrying a tray of martinis. She is followed by a group of guests, including a Godfather and Godmother,...

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