Complete Plays - Hardcover

Firbank, Ronald

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Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1564780473 ISBN 13: 9781564780478

Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press, 1994

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Complementing Dalkey Archive's edition of Firbank's Complete Short Stories (published in 1990), Complete Plays makes available for the first time in one volume this inimitable British writer's three excursions into drama: The Mauve Tower (1904), a "dream play" reminiscent in language and setting of Oscar Wilde's Salome and the writings of the French symbolists; A Disciple from the Country (1907), a one-act comedy about a debutante who flirts with religion and sainthood in order to catch a husband; and The Princess Zoubaroff (1920), a three-act comedy about marriage, religion, and homosexual separatism. The latter, which has been produced in England occasionally since the 1950s, is considered to be among Firbank's major works, and yet it, like the other two plays, has not been generally available in this country until now. The plays are filled with the wit and satire for which Firbank's novels are relished; indeed, Firbank's novels relied so heavily on dialogue that the distinction between them and his plays is minimal. Consequently, those who enjoy his novels and stories - as well as those who enjoy the comic British theater tradition of Pinero, Wilde, and Coward - should welcome this collection. Steven Moore, who edited the Complete Short Stories, has written an introduction placing the plays in the context of Firbank's life.

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About the Author:

British novelist Ronald Firbank was born in London, the son of society lady Harriet Jane Garrett and MP Sir Thomas Firbank. He went to Uppingham School, and then on to Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He converted to Catholicism in 1907. In 1909 he left Cambridge, without completing a degree. Living off his inheritance he travelled around Spain, Italy, the Middle East, and North Africa. Ronald Firbank died of lung disease while in Rome.

From Booklist:

The principal English bearer of camp sensibility between Wilde and Coward, Firbank (1886-1926) is most famous for eight arch novels. He also wrote two one-act plays and The Princess Zoubaroff in three acts. The earliest, The Mauve Tower, is juvenilia, interesting only in that it seems inspired by Wilde's Salom{‚}e. The second, A Disciple from the Country, written when Firbank was 21, comically depicts fashionable people espousing religion for utterly vain reasons; in it, a debutante styles herself "the Saint" in order to snare men and also attracts an old woman who comes to be blessed. The camp characteristic of being enthusiastic about serious things for the wrong reasons--all there is thematically to Disciple--also animates Zoubaroff. But the long play has, besides trivializing religion, the object of ridiculing marriage; although not stating it in so many words, the play implies that all marriages are sexually fraudulent and the most desirable social state would be one of homosexual separatism. Disciple offers just enough glib superciliousness to be utterly amusing; Zoubaroff, though it has its moments, rather too much. Ray Olson

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