Fourteen is a play by Alice Gerstenberg. This one-act social satire was first performed October 7, 1919 at the Maitland Playhouse, 332 Stockton Street, San Francisco, on a bill with three other one-act plays.[1] The San Francisco Chronicle remarked that it "gayly lampoons the question of dinner entertainments".[1] Arthur Maitland's company had just moved into a new 200-seat theater from its previous incarnation as the St. Francis Little Theatre Club in the Colonial Ballroom of the St. Francis Hotel.[2][3]
| Fourteen | |
|---|---|
| Written by | Alice Gerstenberg, 1919 |
| Characters |
|
| Date premiered | 1919 |
| Place premiered | Arthur Maitland's Theatre, San Francisco |
| Setting | The dining room of a New York residence |
The play was originally published in the February 1920 issue of The Drama magazine. It is now a public domain work and may be performed without royalties.
Characters
edit- Mrs. Horace Pringle, a woman of fashion.
- Elaine, her debutante daughter.
- Dunham, the butler or maid.
Synopsis
editMrs. Pringle is preparing to host a dinner party to introduce her daughter, Elaine, to the city's most eligible bachelor, Oliver Farnsworth. Illness and a blizzard force some guests to cancel and the three characters are compelled to try to salvage the evening and the dinner-table layout.[4][5]
Reception
editWriting in The Drama magazine, J. Vandervoort Sloan described Gerstenberg as "a progressive young playwright, possibly the best-known and most widely be-played by amateur groups in America" and Fourteen as belonging "in the 'a' class of her plays".[6] A reviewer for the American Library Association called it an "exemplary social farce".[7]
The play was among those "unqualifiedly recommended" for high-school productions in front of "mixed audiences" by a New Jersey public school drama adviser in 1923. The adviser described it as "portraying the contretemps of a dinner party".[8]
The play has continued to appeal to theater companies and audiences, with several modern productions.[4][9] Reviewing a 2007 production in the New York Times, Anne Midgette described Fourteen as delightfully dated.[10]
References
edit- ^ a b "This Week's Attractions: Maitland", San Francisco Chronicle: E7, October 5, 1919
- ^ "New Maitland Theater Opens for Inspection", San Francisco Chronicle: E5, September 14, 1919
- ^ "The Stage", Town Talk: The Pacific and Bay Cities' Weekly, 32 (1330): 16–17, February 16, 1918
- ^ a b "Synopsis of Fourteen by Alice Gerstenberg". Michael Weston Organisation Pty Ltd. Archived from the original on October 4, 2013. Retrieved February 3, 2015.
- ^ Gerstenberg, Alice (1921). "Ten one-act plays". New York: Longmans. pp. 221–241. Retrieved February 3, 2015.
- ^ Sloan, J. Vandervoort (October–November 1921). "Books". The Drama. 12 (1–2): 19.
- ^ Drury, Francis Keese Wynkoop (1925). Viewpoints in Modern Drama: An Arrangement of Plays According to their Essential Interest. American Library Association. p. 41.
- ^ Moses, Grace C. (April 1923). "Dramatics in the High School". Education Bulletin. 9 (8). New Jersey Department of Education: 137.
- ^ McSheffrey, Kevin (June 22, 2011). "One Act Play Festival attracts five plays to Elliot Lake". Elliot Lake Standard. Elliot Lake, Canada. Retrieved February 3, 2015.
- ^ Midgette, Anne (September 12, 2007). "A Woman's Worth in Love, Marriage, Friendship, Murder". The New York Times. Retrieved February 5, 2015.