What Do I Read Next?
Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1600) includes a group of actors who practice their tragic play, The Most Lamentable Comedy and Most Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisby, leading to amusing results. Act V of A Midsummer Night’s Dream showcases the actual performance of this play.
Similar to The Critic, Michael Frayn’s farce Noises Off (1982) revolves around rehearsals for a play where everything goes awry. Much like A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Noises Off concludes with the audience witnessing the performance of the play they have watched being rehearsed.
The Rivals (1775), Sheridan’s debut play, is a comedy about the interrupted (but eventually resolved) romance between Captain Absolute and Lydia Languish. The play is renowned for the character Mrs. Malaprop, Lydia’s aunt, who frequently makes humorous linguistic blunders known as "malapropisms" (e.g., “As headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile”).
Sheridan’s The School for Scandal (1777), often hailed as his greatest work, depicts the social escapades of Lady Sneerwell and her circle of gossips. Critics often commend the play as an exemplary "comedy of manners."
David Mamet’s American play A Life in the Theater (1977) centers on two actors—one seasoned, one young—who, through a series of vignettes, explore their experiences as actors and the challenges they face in their profession.
The Renaissance duo, Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, created The Night of the Burning Pestle (1613), which, like Puff’s The Spanish Armada, uses several theatrical conventions for comedic effect.
Henry Fielding’s The Tragedy of Tragedies (1731), akin to The Critic, presents a mock tragedy through which Fielding satirizes and parodies certain authors and playwrights of his time. The printed version of the play includes extensive footnotes by Fielding detailing his references and satirical targets.
John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera (1728) defied numerous theatrical norms, both in its themes and political undertones. It became one of the eighteenth century's most popular plays and later inspired Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera in 1928.
Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1967) provides insight into Shakespeare’s Hamlet from the perspective of two minor characters. Like Sheridan, Stoppard enjoys delving into the nature of theater and its conventions.
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