Pinero: Three Plays: The Magistrate; The Second Mrs Tanqueray; Trelawny of the 'Wells'

Description

Born within a year of both Shaw and Wilde, Pinero was one of the most popular - and prolific - playwrights of his age. This volume contains his three best - and still most often performed - plays, each written in a different mode: The Magistrate (1885), a splendid farce; The Second Mrs Tanqueray (1893), a social problem play; and Trelawny of the 'Wells' (1898), an affectionate comedy on the inevitability of change.

Arthur Wing Pinero was born in London in 1855, abandoned the legal profession for acting in 1874 and had his first play produced in 1877. His first major success, The Magistrate (1855), which he also directed, was followed by two more farces, The Schoolmistress (1886) and Dandy Dick (1887), and a comedy, Sweet Lavender (1888), which ran for 683 performances. The Profligate (1889), his first problem play, heralded two more, The Second Mrs. Tanqueray (1893) and The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith (1895), both of which starred Mrs. Patrick Campbell. After Trelawny of the 'Wells' (1898), his popularity was sustained with such plays as His House in Order (1906), and Mid-Channel in 1909, the year of his knighthood. Thereafter his success on stage lessened, though he lived to a respected 79, dying in 1934.

A spirited but mostly genial farce -- Henry Hitchings on The Magistrate * Evening Standard * A spontaneous celebration of the neglected Victorian playwright Arthur Wing Pinero ... the play is fascinating -- Mark Shenton on The Second Mrs Tanqueray * Stage * It certainly makes for fascinating viewing, hemmed in as it is by the vice-like grip of late Victorian morality and the sexual double standards that were - are - applied to men and women. -- Fiona Mountford on The Second Mrs Tanqueray * Evening Standard * It is, curiously, the streak of irreverent comedy that most impresses here as The Second Mrs T weaves its way between heated, issue-driven melodrama and pointed laughter. -- Paul Taylor * Independent * Pinero's writing is direct, unflinching and refreshingly free of exposition - like a man in a rush, he has his story to tell and his views to make. The dialogue is poetic, rhythmical, yet still believable as conversation of the age. The result makes The Second Mrs Tanqueray fast-paced and hugely accessible ... a solid piece of theatrical history. -- Matthew Tucker * Huffington Post * Arhur Wing Pinero, Victorian farceur and man of the theatre, is enjoying a renaissance. -- Susannah Clapp * Observer * The script runs like a piece of comic clockwork and delivers gags at the dependable rate of two per minute. Pinero had the intellect of a great jurist, and he crams his play with moments of subtle and delicate comedy. -- Lloyd Evans on The Magistrate * Spectator *