A Beaux' Stratagem Play Guide

Welcome, welcome, and welcome to this, a play guide to accompany George Farquhar's The Beaux' Stratagem. This site offers a collection of information and resources that might help to illuminate the play. I have conceived of and constructed the site as a sort of dramaturgical or educational reference tool, offering a quick resource for information that may prove tricky to come by, or tedious to collect.

The site is divided into a number of sections, the primary set of which stand as follows:

-The Play: A bit about The Beaux' Stratagem, itself. Includes a synopsis and character list and quotes from the play, along with a collection of quotes from commentators (ranging anywhere from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century) on the play and a handful of editions available online. Also includes a section on Thornton Wilder and Ken Ludwig's adaptation.

-George Farquhar: Includes a few quick facts about Farquhar, a biography, a few links for further information, and collected quotes from Farquhar's other works and from various commentators on Farquhar.

-Historical Context: Overviews andcollected quotes pertaining to various background aspects of the play.

-Production History: List of selected productions, beginning with the play's 1707 premier at The Queen's Theatre, noting particularly prominent productions and those offering particularly unique interpretations. Also includes individual pages for a handful of productions; these pages include additional pieces of reviews, among other tidbits.

-Resources: Lists of web and print sources for suggested perusing, along with the list of works cited on and most heavily referenced in the creation of this site.

Sub-sections may be accessed from these main pages, or through the drop-down menu above. Full citation information on any of the works quoted herein can be found under Resources Cited.

Please peruse at your leisure and liking. I consider this site an ongoing project, and intend to update as I have further quotes, articles, links, and the like to share. Materials currently in preparation include a glossary of terms from the play (including a section dedicated to character names and one to geographical locations), as well as a number of brief articles and pieces of framing information. In terms of further quotations, those taken from primary sources hold priority.

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This guide was first developed as a class project for Dr. Lisa Maruca's "18C Media Matrix," a graduate seminar at Wayne State University, fall 2010; I hope to extend the project and build similar sites. Unless otherwise indicated, quotations from The Beaux' Stratagem refer to the 1990 New Mermaids edition, as edited by Michael Cordner (see Resources Cited for full bibliographic information).

Questions and comments, suggestions and critiques, are all welcome at [email protected].


Last updated December 31, 2010.