Monday, August 31, 2009

Two plays

Since they're plays, they're quick to get through, which is why I've put so many on my list. Like for many of you, other reading keeps butting into my list reading.
But there you go, two more down.
Kasimir und Karoline, by Oedoen von Horvath (1932) and
The School for Scandal, by Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1777).
Both are on my list because I've read other works by the same authors.
Horvath gets assigned in high school in Germany, the novel Jugend ohne Gott. He seems to have made his living as a playwright, though, so I chose the one that includes my dad's middle name in the title - as good a reason as any, I think.
I picked up Sheridan to read The Rivals, which is where Madam Malaprop - the namesake of malapropisms - makes her appearance. I liked it, so I figured I'd read another.
I like Horvath's novels more, but, then again, I didn't see this staged, and I definitely didn't see it staged in Germany in 1932, which may have changed my interest. - It included a joke about women always going to the bathroom together, though. Now I wonder when this observation was first made in print. Maybe it's already on the walls of Lasceaux.
Sheridan is full of cutesy witticisms, so it's fun to leaf through.
My favorite line is by Lady Teazle to her husband, early in the play:
Authority! No, to be sure: if you wanted authority over me, you sould have adopted me and not married me. I am sure you were old enough.
Zing!

1 comments:

Matthew Heuett said...

It's been a long time since I read it, but I remember enjoying The School for Scandal. It struck me as being a sort of latter-day, sanitized version of English Restoration comedies like Wycherly's The Country Wife and Etherege's The Man of Mode.