Plays and Theatrical Essays of Elizabeth Robins

Plays

• Votes for Women
  • The most noteworthy of the theatrical efforts by Elizabeth Robins, it has been several times anthologized and several times produced in contemporary times. The published version appeared in 1909, two years after Robins had adapted the play as the best selling novel The Convert. Both are available in web editions. The play at Archive.org
  • Prompt book text of the 1907 Court Theatre Production.  The most noteworthy of the theatrical efforts by Elizabeth Robins. This was listed in a prominient scholarly work as if published by Jacksonville State University Press, though it has not officially been published, except in typed format, sprial bound. It served as the source text for the edition published in Katherine Kelly's volume, Modern Drama by Women, but that printing excised the Granville Barker Stage directions. Purchase page at Routledge for Modern Drama by Women.
    
    • Program for University of North Alabama's production of Votes for Women, November 1997.
    • Playwright Stephen Jeffreys writes about the significance of Robins' play on the occasion of his staged reading of 1999, in The Daily Telegraph, Courting a Pioneer.
    • The Guardian revisits the April 1907 Court Theatre production in this 2003 article by Samantha Ellis. Guardian Arcticle on line.
  • More information on Votes for Women:
    • Making use of the edited Granville Barker promptbook edition, Marcia Rock filmed Act II at NYU, Women's History Month 1992. Frank McCourt participated in the reading.
    • A college production was recorded for YouTube, Green College (University of British Columbia, Vancouver). This has inferior camera and microphone output, but the sense of the play (adapted for a 2017 audience) might be gleaned. Open the "More" for links to Acts 2 and 3, the cast list, and further details. Act One Link. Act Two Link. Act Three Link. Directed by Hilary Ball.

    • The Guardian printed this review of a 2018 production of Votes for Women. An adaptation with a prologue and epilogue, produced at Newcastle on-Tyne. Review by Natalie Haynes. (Annie Kenney—the photo of the actor portraying her is in the review-- is not a character in Robins’ play.) Guardian Review.

    • A very high quality Zoom Performance of the entire play (2 hours 44 minutes). CestJackie's YouTube performance channel with Jacqueline Elizabeth in the lead role of Vida Levering. Premiered 9 August 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmsGUlKH9Po

• Alan's Wife (1893) a collaboration with Florence Bell to dramatize a translation of Befriad (Set Free).
• Other plays by Robins (unproduced, unpublished in her lifetime):
  • The Mirkwater [Although not published in her lifetime, a typscript was prepared by Miami University of Ohio, Link not currently active, but archived at the wayback machine, https://web.archive.org/web/20001006231251/http://www.lib.muohio.edu/dlib/mirkwater.html. Older link was: http://www.lib.miamioh.edu/dlib/mirkwater.html.] 
  • The Silver Lotus
  • Where Are You Going To? (adaptation of the novel published in the US as My Little Sister).
  • Each of these last two titles were transcribed by the Project Director and exist as Pdf files. Email the project director.

    • Where Are You Going To? is now published under the title My Little Sister in this volume:

      Johnson, Katie N. Sex for Sale: Six Progressive-Era Brothel Dramas. University of Iowa Press (Studies in Theatre History and Culture), 2015.  My Little Sister, pp.114-175, with Johnson's introduction and notes, pp. 107-113, 256-259. ISBN: 978-1-60938-313-8. Unlike the public domain Votes for Women, rights to this play in performance presumably revert to Independent Age.

  • See also under Alaska, "Bowarra."
    
  • Benvenuto Cellini
• Ideas for plays or plays less developed: Evangeline.

Essays on the Stage

• Across America (1890) (with Edwin Booth and Laurence Barrett's company).
• On Seeing Madame Bernhardt's Hamlet (1900)
• "On the Need of the London Stage." Printed as The Need of the London Stage. 1904 in Review of Reviews. Page Images from Hathi Trust. 
• "Henrk Ibsen: The Drama of Ideas, A Determined Originator." Published in the Times, 17 March 1928.
• Time and Tide published a different ER essay on Ibsen, the same week as ER's address to the Drama League, printed shortly after as Ibsen and the Actress.
• Ibsen and the Actress, published in 1928, is now in the public domain. See HathiTrust for page images. Go to the Ibsen and the Actress section of the Robins Web for additional formats and supporting information.

Permission to web publish the works of Elizabeth Robins in electronic format was granted by Mabel Smith, literary executor, Elizabeth Robins Estate. Hypertext Markup copyright Joanne E. Gates. Pagination, spelling and original punctuation retained. See full disclosures and contact information in: Credits, Disclaimers.