More Play Summaries in Four Words Quiz

Answer: Blithe Spirit

A novelist holds a seance to get material for his next story. In the process, the medium brings his dead wife back as a ghost...whom his current wife cannot see. After a car accident, the other wife ends up as a ghost at the man's house. Yes, it's a screwball comedy, written by Noel Coward.

Answer: Antigone

"Antigone" is the third surviving play in Sophocles' Theban cycle, with events following those of "Oedipus Rex" and "Oedipus at Colonus". Oedipus' daughter Antigone wishes to bury her brother, dead in war, but her uncle Creon forbids it because the brother had been a rebel.

She buries him anyway, which leads Creon to sentence her to be buried alive. She defends the morality of her actions but accepts her fate. By the end, Creon has seen the immorality of his actions and bemoans what has happened.

Answer: Oedipus Rex

A prophecy states that Oedipus will kill his father and marry his mother, so his parents abandon him in the wild. A shepherd saves him, and when he grows up, Oedipus kills a man on the road who bothers him, solves the Sphinx's riddle, and as a reward marries the Queen of Thebes, who turns out to be his mother.

They are horrified when they find out years later (after they've had kids!). This is the play that lends its name to Freud's "Oedipal Complex."

Answer: Oleanna

This play, written by David Mamet, features only two characters--a male teacher, John, and a female undergraduate, Carol. The student files harassment charges against the teacher, charges which he claims never happened, and the play continues as Carol berates him for his views on higher education.

The title comes from a song based on a Utopian society that failed because the inhabitants could not live in the woods there and abandoned the town.

Answer: The Miracle Worker

William Gibson's play is based on the lives of Helen Keller, who became blind and deaf in infancy, and Annie Sullivan, the woman who comes to teach her. The real Sullivan went blind at an early age but eventually regained some of her sight with an operation.

Answer: Lost in Yonkers

In this Neil Simon play, two brothers are left with their strict grandmother and immature aunt Bella while their father looks for work on the road. The grandmother limits Bella's freedom, and the boys watch the family fall apart. While it is sad, this play has a lot of humor as well.

Answer: Our Town

The Stage Manager, well aware of the audience, takes the viewers on a tour of a typical day in a New England town. The inhabitants are played by the townspeople themselves, who bow and curtsy at the end of some of their scenes. There are minimal props, sets, and scenery because the playwright, Thornton Wilder, thought that physical objects took away from the emotional theatrical experience.

Answer: Harvey

The main character Elwood believes that he is followed by Harvey, a very tall, invisible pooka (a type of fairy from folk tales) that takes the form of a rabbit. Elwood refers to Harvey as a friend; however, his sister wants to have him committed to spare her family shame. Due to a mix-up at the hospital, she's committed instead, and Elwood continues to walk around town introducing people to Harvey. Mary Chase wrote this play.

Answer: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

This play, written by Tom Stoppard, follows these minor characters from "Hamlet" as they bumble through the play. They cannot remember anything that happened to them before the start of the play, make scientific discoveries that they quickly forget, make existential musings, and wonder whether they have any choice in their fates. Stoppard later adapted his play into a film, which he also directed.

Answer: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)

Three actors take Shakespeare's plays (and sonnets!) and perform them all in about ninety minutes. The histories are done as a football game, "Othello" is a rap, and "Titus Andronicus" becomes a cooking show. The actors also improvise, talk to the audience, and even ask for audience participation.

At the end, they perform "Hamlet" fast (in under a minute), faster (in about three seconds), and backwards. The original troop that created and perfomed this is called the Reduced Shakespeare Company.