A first line quiz on great plays

 

Here for your entertainment is a slight revision of a quiz I posted some years ago.  It reflects mostly classical and 19^th and 20^th century plays. A reasonably well read theatre goer should have no trouble identifying a fair number of them. Some advantage goes to the Monmouth College grad or older faculty as I directed nine of them there and have taught all of them before I retired in 2002.  One final hint.  None are musicals, not because I don’t like them, but because scripts or published versions are not easily available to double check the accuracy of their first lines.  Here goes:   

11 1. “Nothing to be done.”

2.I2. "If music be the food of love, play on.”

3  "3. "Yes, I have tricks in my pocket; I have things up my sleeve.”

4.   4. "Children, youngest brood of Cadmus the Old, why do you sit here with branches in your hand while the air is heavy with lament?”

5.   5. “The train’s in, thank God. What time is it?”

6.   6. "Willy?”

7.    7. "Who’s there?”

8.    8. "Is that you Petey?” 

9.     9. "Oh my word, I don’t think they are even up yet.”

10 10. "I pray you all give your audience and hear this matter with reverence, by figure a moral play.”

1111. “Oh God for an end to this weary work; a year-long I have watched here--head on arm.”

1212 . “Jesus H. Christ!”

   13.  “Now fair Hippolyta our nuptial hour draws on apace.”

1114. “With one particular horse, called Nugget, he embraces . . .”

1515.  “Septimus, what is carnal embrace?” Your grades:  13-15 Right  ”A” You are a dramaturgical scholar.

Your grade:  

13-15 Right  ”A” You are a dramaturgical scholar.

9-12 Right  “B” Almost at the top.  When I went to college this was still considered an excellent                                  grade.”  

8-11 Right: “C” Still respectable, You probably didn’t take a lot of  theatre history or dramatic literature                      sequences along the way.

5-7 Right: “D” passing but you should probably not try out for Jeopardy. 

Below 5 Right: Get thee to a nunnery as you need to brush up on your Shakespeare, Miller, and                            Williams.  

Answers: 1 Samuel Beckett Waiting for Godot  2 Wiliam Shakespeare Twelfth Night 3 Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie 4 Sophocles Oedipus Rex 5 Anton Chekov The Cherry Orchard 6 Arthur Miller Death of a Salesman 7 William Shakespeare Hamlet  8 Harold Pinter The Birthday Party 9 Henrik Ibsen Hedda Gabler  10  Everyman  11 Aeschylus Agamemnon  12 Edward Albee Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf  13  William Shakespeare A Midsummer Night’s Dream  14  Peter Shaffer Equus  15  Tom Stoppard Arcadia