''Fourteen'' is a play by
Alice Gerstenberg
Alice Erya Gerstenberg (2 August 1885 – 28 July 1972) was an American playwright, actress, and activist best known for her experimental, feminist drama and her involvement with the Little Theatre Movement in Chicago.
Background
Gerstenberg w ...
. This one-act social satire was first performed October 7, 1919 at the Maitland Playhouse, 332 Stockton Street,
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...
, on a bill with three other one-act plays.
The San Francisco Chronicle remarked that it "gayly lampoons the question of dinner entertainments".
'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
The Westin St. Francis, formerly known as St. Francis Hotel, is a hotel located on Powell and Geary Streets on Union Square, San Francisco, California. The two 12-story south wings of the hotel were built in 1904, and the double-width north wing ...
.
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
*
*
*
* Mr. Pringle, husband of horace pringle.
Synopsis
Mrs. Pringle is preparing to host a dinner party to introduce her daughter, Elaine, to the city's most
eligible bachelor
An eligible bachelor is a bachelor considered to be a particularly desirable potential husband, usually due to wealth, social status or other specific personal qualities.
In the United Kingdom, the heir to the throne or someone close in succe ...
, 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.
Reception
Writing 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". A reviewer for the
American Library Association
The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with 49,727 members ...
called it an "exemplary social farce".
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".
The play has continued to appeal to theater companies and audiences, with several modern productions.
References
{{Reflist
External links
Performances and videos
''Fourteen'' - SUDS''Fourteen'' by Alice GerstenbergYoutube.comYoutube.com
Online script links
1919 plays