Comedies & Satirical Plays
Comedies & Satirical Plays rely on humor, irony, and satire, often lampooning social conventions or human folly. We've gathered selections that reflect the rich history of comedic and satirical playwriting, ranging from the ancient Greek tradition through the present.
Accidental Death of an Anarchist was first written and produced by playwright and actor Dario Fo in Italy, 1970. The script was directly inspired by the events surrounding the 1969 Piazza Fontana Bombing, and much of Fo’s work revolves around political satire directed at Italy post-World War II and later. Exemplifying Fo’s work as a writer, Accidental Death of an Anarchist combines the humor, irony, and satire of the old Italian tradition of commedia dell’arte... Read Accidental Death Of An Anarchist Summary
All’s Well That Ends Well is a play by William Shakespeare (1582-1616), one of the most influential writers in the English language. The date of composition is not known, but All’s Well That Ends Well was first performed between 1598 and 1608. It was published in 1623, in the First Folio. Shakespeare’s work is part of Early Modern English literature, alongside playwrights like Ben Jonson and Christopher Marlowe, during which time the play and theater... Read All's Well That Ends Well Summary
A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a comedic play by William Shakespeare that was likely first written and performed around 1600. The first certifiably recorded performance took place in 1604. Set in the Greek city-state of Athens, the play centers on an impending marriage. Before the wedding, the characters find themselves in a forest where a group of fairies manipulates and tricks them. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of Shakespeare’s most popular and most performed... Read A Midsummer Night's Dream Summary
Arcadia by Tom Stoppard was first performed on April 13, 1993, at the Royal National Theatre in London. In 2006, the Royal Institution of Great Britain named it one of the best science-related works ever written.The play has dual plot lines, one historical and one modern, which share the same physical setting. In the 19th century, the play follows the young Thomasina, a mathematical genius far ahead of her time, and her tutor, Septimus Hodge... Read Arcadia Summary
Arsenic and Old Lace is a three-act, farcical dark comedy by American playwright Joseph Kesselring. It made its Broadway debut in 1941 and enjoyed a successful three-year run. The play was made famous by the 1944 film adaptation directed by Frank Capra and starring Cary Grant as Mortimer Brewster. It is still commonly read and performed today. This guide correlates to the official script published by Dramatists Play Service Inc.Page numbers in your edition may... Read Arsenic and Old Lace Summary
As You Like It is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare. The date of its first performance is unknown, but it is believed to have been written in 1599. As You Like It was first published in 1623 in the First Folio, the first of the posthumously published collections of Shakespeare’s plays.This summary refers to the 2019 Folger Shakespeare Library updated edition. Your edition’s line numbers and spellings may vary slightly.Plot SummaryWhen the play begins... Read As You Like It Summary
August: Osage County by American playwright Tracy Letts premiered at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre in June 2007 and debuted on Broadway in December of the same year. When Beverly, the Weston family patriarch, goes missing, a web of estranged family members travel home to gather around his vitriolic spouse, Violet. The play is semi-autobiographical, and Letts explores themes of addiction, suicide, and generational trauma from his own childhood in Oklahoma. In 2008, August: Osage County won... Read August: Osage County Summary
Barefoot in the Park is a 1963 play by Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright Neil Simon. Born in the Bronx in 1927, Simon grew up during the Depression. Financial strains characteristic of the time caused tension in his parents’ marriage, and Simon sought escape at the movies, with comedic films in particular. Laughter and comedy served as emotional balms for him, as they do in his semi-autobiographical plays. His plays are often set in New York... Read Barefoot In The Park Summary
Blithe Spirit is a 1941 farce written by the English playwright, composer, and actor Noël Coward. Known for his wit and style, Coward’s theatrical career lasted for nearly six decades. Blithe Spirit, one of his most popular and enduring works, was first performed in the West End, running for 1,997 performances, before transferring to Broadway for 657 performances. It was adapted into the musical High Spirits in 1964. To this day, the play continues to... Read Blithe Spirit Summary
Brighton Beach Memoirs is a semi-autobiographical play by American playwright Neil Simon. It is the first play in Simon’s Eugene Trilogy and follows its young protagonist as he grapples with adolescence and identity in the midst of the Great Depression. Its initial 1983 Broadway run enjoyed critical acclaim and won several awards. Most notably, actor Matthew Broderick won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor for originating the role of Eugene. Despite its initial success... Read Brighton Beach Memoirs Summary
Cyrano de Bergerac: An Heroic Comedy in Five Acts by Edmond Rostand was originally published in 1898. Rostand was a popular poet and playwright in France during his lifetime. Cyrano de Bergerac is a five-act verse drama—a tragic romance, set in France in the mid-1600s. It was far more popular than all of Rostand’s other works and has been performed and adapted countless times since its initial successful run.Cyrano de Bergerac explores themes of Unrequited... Read Cyrano de Bergerac Summary
Endgame is a one-act, absurdist play by Samuel Beckett, first performed in 1957. The post-apocalyptic play portrays the farcical, tragic existence of four character who are caught in an unfulfilling routine. Beckett regarded the play as one of his greatest achievements. It has been adapted as an opera and as a short film.This guide uses the 2009 Faber and Faber edition. Plot SummaryThe curtain rises on a nearly bare stage: a room in Hamm’s home... Read Endgame Summary
The Life of Gargantua and Pantagruel is a series of five novels written in French by François Rabelais in the 16th century. The novel-cycle relates the adventures of two giants in hyperbolic, satirical prose. Using humor ranging from slapstick to irony, Rabelais explores serious themes such as the development of education and religious reformation. The books are noted for their colorful, rich literary style, bursting with puns, allusions, and social commentary. An early example of... Read Gargantua And Pantagruel Summary
The “coffee is for closers” line is considered one of the most iconic moments from playwright David Mamet’s entire oeuvre (Glengarry Glen Ross. Directed by James Foley, New Line Cinema, 1992). However, the line is actually nowhere to be found in the playscript for Glengarry Glenn Ross, which premiered at the National Theatre in London in 1983 and debuted on Broadway in 1984. Rather, it appears in the 1992 film adaptation, with a screenplay that... Read Glengarry Glen Ross Summary
In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play), which premiered on Broadway in 2010, has since become one of Sarah Ruhl’s best-known and most popularly produced plays. Prior to Ruhl’s Broadway debut with In the Next Room, she earned a MacArthur Genius Fellowship and a PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award, and her 2004 play The Clean House was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. In the Next Room was also a Pulitzer Prize finalist and... Read In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) Summary
Le Cid is a five-act tragicomic play by Pierre Corneille, first performed in 1636 at the Théâtre du Marais in Paris. The plot is based on the Spanish play Las mocedadas del Cid by Guillén de Castro, which itself is based on the legend of Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar (1043-1099), a Castilian knight and Spanish national hero whose title “El Cid” is derived from the Arabic word for lord, sayyid. Corneille (1606-1684) is considered one... Read Le Cid Summary
William Congreve (1670-1729) briefly studied law before pursuing a career as a playwright. Love for Love, one of his comedies, was first produced in 1695, and was followed by a string of other works including The Way of the World (1700) until Congreve retired from writing for the stage in 1701. He spent the rest of his life occupying minor government posts and pursuing failed business ventures. He died in 1729 at the age of... Read Love for Love Summary
Lysistrata (411 BCE) was written by the best-known Greek comic poet, the Athenian playwright Aristophanes. We know little of Aristophanes’ life outside of his work. His birth and death cannot be firmly dated, but he was believed to have been born around 460 BCE and died sometime in the mid-380s BCE. His active period, though, is more certain— around 425 to 388 BCE—making him a contemporary of other fifth-century Athenian luminaries like Socrates, Euripides, and... Read Lysistrata Summary
Measure for Measure is a play written by William Shakespeare. It was first performed in 1604 and is considered one of Shakespeare’s “problem plays” because of its ambiguous tone that shifts between tragedy and comedy. Shakespeare was a prolific poet and playwright during the Elizabethan and Jacobean era. While his earlier works were primarily comedies and histories, Measure for Measure was written during the period in which Shakespeare began to write many of his most... Read Measure For Measure Summary
Much Ado About Nothing, a comedy dating from the mid-career period of William Shakespeare was probably written just prior to 1600. The play has the trappings of a theatrical farce with its use of assumptions and misunderstandings. Main characters Benedick and Beatrice are duped into announcing their love for each other while Claudio is fooled into spurning Hero at the altar when he mistakenly believes that she has not been faithful to him. The theme of lovers being tricked... Read Much Ado About Nothing Summary
My Fair Lady, a musical by Alan Jay Lerner (book and lyrics) and Frederick Loewe (music), opened on Broadway to tremendous critical and popular success in 1956, starring Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews as Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle. Adapted from George Bernard Shaw’s popular play Pygmalion (1914) and inspired by the Greek myth of “Pygmalion and Galatea,” the musical takes place in early-20th-century London, satirizing issues of class hierarchies, gender disparity, and how language... Read My Fair Lady Summary
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw was first published in 1914, with an updated version published in 1941. The play was Shaw’s most popular and most critically acclaimed work. It inspired the heavily romanticized musical and movie adaptation My Fair Lady, which won both a Tony for Best Musical and an Oscar for Best Picture.Shaw began his career as a novelist, but his novels were largely unsuccessful. After he moved from Dublin to London, he shifted... Read Pygmalion Summary
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is a three-act play by the English playwright Tom Stoppard. It is an existentialist, absurdist satire featuring characters and events from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. First performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1966, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead enjoyed critical success, winning The New York Drama Critics’ Circle’s Award for Best Play and four Tony Awards in 1968. Since then, the play has been adapted into several radio plays and a... Read Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead Summary
Seven Guitars, which premiered in 1995 at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and transferred to Broadway in 1996, is the seventh play in August Wilson’s American Century Cycle, also known as the Pittsburgh Cycle. This series, consisting of ten plays that are each set in a different decade of the 20th century, explore the lives of African Americans during each era. With the exclusion Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (1984), which takes place in 1920s Chicago... Read Seven Guitars Summary
She Stoops to Conquer is a play by British writer Oliver Goldsmith, first performed in 1773. The play is a comedy of manners and a romance set in 18th-century England. Goldsmith was an Anglo-Irish poet and dramatist and this play is his most popular and well-known work, with performances still regularly occurring in the 21st century. In 1778, John O'Keeffe wrote a successful sequel to the play, entitled Tony Lumpkin in Town. She Stoops to... Read She Stoops to Conquer Summary
Six Characters in Search of an Author by Italian dramatist Luigi Pirandello was published in 1921 in a collection of plays called Naked Masks. The play was first performed in Italian; Edward Storer translated it into English in 1922, and it was first performed in London’s West End and New York City later that year. The play’s avant-garde and meta-theatrical elements make it a precursor to the Theatre of the Absurd, and Pirandello’s work inspired... Read Six Characters in Search of an Author Summary
William Shakespeare is the author of “Sonnet 130.” The sonnet is one of 154 sonnets that Shakespeare published in 1609 under the title Shakes-spears Sonnets. The first 126 sonnets address a young man, while Sonnets 127-152 focus on a mysterious woman. As with “Sonnet 130,” the sonnets about the enigmatic woman concern ideas of love and beauty and directly undercut typical representations of both. Thus, “Sonnet 130” is satire; it makes fun of how adored... Read Sonnet 130 Summary
Theresa Rebeck’s provocative feminist two-act drama Spike Heels, first produced in 1990, is a problem play, that is a drama that looks at cultural, social, and economic issues. Problem plays intended to participate in the cultural conversation have a long and significant history in the theater. Playwrights like the Ancient Greek Euripides, 19th century Henrik Ibsen and George Bernard Shaw (whose presence looms large in Spike Heels), and a wide number of contemporary playwrights have... Read Spike Heels Summary
Tartuffe, also known as The Imposter or The Hypocrite, is a Neoclassical comedy written by French playwright, actor, writer, and director Molière, born as Jean-Baptiste Poquelin. It was first produced in 1664 in France. While King Louis XIV and the public enjoyed the play, religious groups, including the Catholic Church and members of the upper class, condemned it for its display of a seemingly religious character who preys on those around on him for his... Read Tartuffe Summary
The Brothers Menaechmus is a comedy of mistaken identity, written by the Roman playwright Plautus around the beginning of the second century BC. With its shimmering wordplay, twisting plot and virtuosic use of metre, the play served a crucial role in the development of comedy as a genre, inspiring playwrights such as Shakespeare and Molière. It is among the earliest Latin works to have survived intact.Moschus, a merchant from Syracuse, in Sicily, has twin sons... Read The Brothers Menaechmus Summary
Written in 1903 and first performed in 1904, The Cherry Orchard is the final work by acclaimed Russian playwright and author Anton Chekhov. Considered a classic of modern theater, the play tells the story of Lubov Andreyevna Ranevsky, an aristocratic Russian landowner who returns home after spending five years in Paris. She discovers that her family’s estate and renowned cherry orchard must be sold to cover debts. The enterprising merchant Lopakhin offers Lubov a plan to save the... Read The Cherry Orchard Summary
The Clean House, which premiered at Yale Repertory Theatre in 2004 and opened Off-Broadway in 2006, was the first major play by celebrated American playwright Sarah Ruhl, whose other widely recognized works include Eurydice (2004), Dead Man’s Cell Phone (2007), and In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) (2009). The Clean House received a Susan Smith Blackburn Prize in 2004 and was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Ruhl also earned... Read The Clean House Summary
Clouds is an Attic Comedy by Aristophanes (circa 450-385 BCE). The play was initially produced at the City Dionysia in 423 BCE, where it placed third in a drama festival. Aristophanes subsequently worked on a revision that he never completed, and it is this incomplete revision that represents the surviving text of the play known today. Clouds centers on the character of Strepsiades and his ill-conceived attempt to learn sophistry, or fallacious arguments, from Socrates... Read The Clouds Summary
The Colored Museum is a play by Tony Award-winning dramatist George C. Wolfe. The play premiered in March 1986 at Crossroads Theatre Company in New Jersey.A satire of modern conventions surrounding African American identity, The Colored Museum is set in a fictional museum where a collection of 11 “exhibits” have been mounted for public viewing. These exhibits take the form of sketches performed by an ensemble of five Black performers—two men and three women. Direct... Read The Colored Museum Summary
William Wycherley’s The Country Wife was written and first performed in London, in 1675. The play has lived on as one of the most famous examples of British Restoration comedies and continues to be produced frequently. The Restoration era, between 1660 and about 1700, describes the period following the Commonwealth era and the restoration of the English monarchy. During the Commonwealth, theatre was banned in England for 18 years, so with his return to the... Read The Country Wife Summary
Frogs is an ancient Athenian comic play by Aristophanes (446-386 B.C.E.). It was first performed in 405 B.C.E. for the Lenaia, an annual sacred festival held in January in honor of the god Dionysus. According to ancient sources, Frogs (which won first prize) was held in such high regard that it was honored with a second production, an unusual event since comedies and tragedies were produced for competition at sacred festivals and rarely staged again... Read The Frogs Summary
The Government Inspector is a satirical stage play by Russian-Ukrainian author Nikolai Gogol, originally published in 1836 and later revised in 1842. Also known as The Inspector General, the play is a comedy of errors based on a supposed anecdote relayed to Gogol by the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin. In a small unnamed Russian town, a young dissolute government clerk, Khlestakov, is mistaken for an awaited government inspector. Khlestakov uses the situation to his advantage... Read The Government Inspector Summary
Le Malade Imaginaire, typically translated as The Imaginary Invalid, opened in Paris in 1673 and was the final play written by the famous French satirist Molière. Molière wrote frequently about doctors, and six of his comedies deal significantly with medical practitioners. The trope of the doctor who is as greedy and as pompous as he is inept—often speaking a jumble of Latin and Greek to prove his intelligence—is a stock character of commedia dell’arte, the... Read The Imaginary Invalid Summary
The Importance of Being Earnest, a comedy, is Oscar Wilde’s final play. It premiered at St. James’ Theatre in London on February 14, 1895 and skewered the contemporary habits and attitudes of the British aristocracy. The opening was hugely successful, but Wilde’s ongoing conflict with the Marquess of Queensberry, his lover’s powerful father, led the play to close prematurely after Wilde was charged with “gross indecency” for having sex with men. Despite this setback, The... Read The Importance of Being Earnest Summary
The Miser, by Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (better known by his stage name, Molière) was written in 1668 and was first performed at the theatre of the Palais-Royal in Paris on September 9th, 1668. The five-act play, which takes much of its inspiration from Plautus’ Latin comedy Aulularia (or The Pot of Gold), is a comedy centered on a penny-pinching old miser, Harpagon, who schemes to make more money by arranging marriages for himself and his two... Read The Miser Summary
The Odd Couple is a satirical play by American playwright Neil Simon. It opened on Broadway in 1965 and chronicles the unconventional relationship between friends turned roommates, Oscar Madison and Felix Ungar. The play found enduring success and inspired subsequent film and television adaptations. It was nominated for a New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award in 1965.Many of Simon’s plays are influenced by his own upbringing. Simon was born in the Bronx and grew up... Read The Odd Couple Summary
The Playboy of the Western World is a comedy written by Irish playwright John M. Synge. The play was first produced in 1907 at the Abbey Theatre, or the National Theatre of Ireland. Although his work was largely criticized during his lifetime, Synge is one of Ireland’s most famous 20th-century playwrights. He wrote only six plays during his relatively short career; the most notable among his works are The Playboy of the Western World and... Read The Playboy of the Western World Summary
Aphra Behn’s play The Rover, or The Banished Cavaliers, debuted in London in 1677 with King Charles II in attendance; The Rover was reportedly one of his favorite plays. In Restoration England, theatre was a political act, particularly when a play was written by a woman and openly defied Puritan conservatism. Beginning in 1642, the Puritan-run Parliament had banned theatre, partially because they viewed it as sinful and financially excessive, and partially because the theatre... Read The Rover Summary
While Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull is now regarded as one of his most famous plays, it was not until the second time it premiered in Russia that it garnered success. Written in 1895 and first produced the following year, The Seagull is set against the backdrop of a summer country home, and tackles The Consequences of Disillusionment, The Purpose of Art, and the price of Living in the Shadow of a Renowned Parent. Chekhov relies... Read The Seagull Summary
The Taming of the Shrew is one of William Shakespeare’s earliest comedies, probably first performed around 1593. While the play’s depiction of women is the subject of much debate among modern readers and scholars, its popularity endures, and the play continues to be reproduced in various mediums. Notable adaptations include the 1967 film starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, and the 1999 romantic comedy 10 Things I Hate About You.This guide refers to the 2014... Read The Taming of the Shrew Summary
One of the most popular plays by William Shakespeare, The Tempest tells the comic tale of Prospero, the overthrown duke of Milan, who maroons his betrayers on a magical island. There, he creates spells and enchantments that toy with the evildoers until they promise to return him to his throne. The production, first staged in London in 1611, provides spectacle, elaborate effects, screwball comedy, intrigue, and romance in a story about ambition, revenge, remorse, love... Read The Tempest Summary
The Visit, by Swiss author and playwright Friedrich Dürrenmatt, premiered in 1956 at the Schauspielhaus Zürich under the German title Der Besuch der alten Dame, or The Visit of the Old Lady. Dürrenmatt’s darkly comic satiric plays are credited with helping revitalize German theatre following World War II. His writing also reveals the influence of German playwright Bertolt Brecht, notably in Dürrenmatt’s use of parables: simple stories using human characters to illustrate a lesson or... Read The Visit Summary
The Winter’s Tale is a late romance play in five acts by William Shakespeare. Originally published in the First Folio of 1623 but debuted onstage circa 1611, the play follows a man’s reckless jealousy as it destroys his family and his own conscience. Shakespeare’s play is based on the romance Pandosto: The Triumph of Time by the Elizabethan author Robert Greene published in 1588, with Shakespeare taking a more lighthearted approach to Greene’s story toward... Read The Winter's Tale Summary
The Witch of Edmonton by Thomas Dekker is a "Jacobean" play, meaning that it was written during the reign of James I of England. Dekker co-wrote this play with William Rowley and John Ford in 1621. Ford co-authored several plays, with six surviving, including The Witch of Edmonton. There are eight surviving plays written solely by Ford. Rowley’s contributions are not as well divided, but he wrote or co-wrote no less than 17 surviving plays... Read The Witch of Edmonton Summary
Two Gentlemen of Verona is a romantic comedy generally assumed to be the first play written by William Shakespeare. It was likely written between 1587 and 1593, though the exact date of composition is unknown. The play describes the fallout that ensues when two young men (one of whom is engaged) fall in love with the same woman. Important themes in the play include The Restrictions of Courtly Love for Women, The Fickle Nature of... Read Two Gentlemen of Verona Summary
Ubu Roi, a play by Alfred Jarry, debuted in Paris in December 1896. The play’s opening night at the Théâtrede l’Oeuvre was also its closing night, as a commotion—often described as a “riot”—broke out amongst the audience, who were accustomed to naturalist theatre and were horrified by the play’s shocking and crude nature. Nonetheless, the play has gone on to be seen as a deeply-influential work of theatre, and is cited as one of the precursors to modernism and... Read Ubu Roi Summary
Vanity Fair is a serialized novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, published from 1847-1848. The novel was subtitled Pen and Pencil Sketches of English Society, then changed to A Novel without a Hero in 1848. The novel’s characters generally lack positive qualities and are obsessed with social climbing and the acquisition of wealth. Vanity Fair has been adapted for film, television, and theatre. This guide uses the 2001 Penguin Classics edition. Content Warning: The source material... Read Vanity Fair Summary
