The Greek Tragedy Behind Suddenly Last Summer
A reinterpretation shows how Euripides's The Bacchae illuminates Tennessee Williams's play and its haunting final act.
Simone de Beauvoir’s Only Play
Beauvoir’s Who Shall Die? explores moral responsibility and the unequal valuation of human life during wartime.
The Scandalous Play in Mansfield Park
Jane Austen uses Elizabeth Inchbald’s Lovers’ Vows to explore the social boundaries, both public and private, of Regency England.
Arthur Miller, Comedian
Yep. The author of Death of a Salesman and The Crucible wrote comedies as well. Funny ones.
Gonna Make You a (Bangsawan) Star
The bangsawan theater in early twentieth-century Malaya offered women a chance to build a public identity beyond marriage and motherhood.
Burlesque Beginnings
From its nineteenth-century origins, burlesque developed into a self-aware performance art that celebrates the female form and challenges social norms.
Remembering Sun Yat Sen Abroad
Museums around the world honor the history of the revolutionary, but as Singapore’s Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall shows, those memories aren’t easy to read.
Laura Kieler: A Life Exploited
Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen mined Kieler's life for the plot of his most famous play, The Doll's House.
Virginia Woolf’s Only Play
Based on Woolf's own family, Freshwater was a tongue-in-cheek comedy full of inside jokes, written to entertain members of the Bloomsbury Group.