The Long Christmas Dinner and Other Plays in One Act

by Thornton Wilder

no writing on pages, minimal wear on cover

Genres: Plays, Christmas, Classics, Drama, Fiction, Theatre

127 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1931

About the author

Thornton Niven Wilder was an American playwright and novelist. He received three Pulitzer Prizes, one for his novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey and two for his plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, and a National Book Award for his novel The Eighth Day.

For more see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thornton...

Reviews

[Khaled Al-Bahnsawy · Rating 2 out of 5]

مسرحية عشاء الكريسماس الطويل هي اول قراءاتي الفعلية لعام 2021 وهي تجربتي الأول مع مسرح الكاتب الأمريكي ثورنتون وايلدر دفعني اليها قيام الصديق محمود راضي بترجمة العمل وكانت ترجمة على قدر عالي من الجودة تجعلني أكثر تحمسا لعمله القادم.
عودة للمسرحية نفسها متفهم الفكرة من العمل بان الحياة دائرة مغلقة وباننا سنحل محل اجدادنا واحفادنا محلنا وتستمر الحياة وهكذا واختار الكاتب فكرة عشاء الكريسماس الذي يتكرر سنويا للاستدلال على الفكرة لكن لم تروق لي كثيرا.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good collection of plays. There are five short ones all in the unmistakable Thorton Wilder style.

[Lbball27 · Rating 4 out of 5]

very good one-act play by Thornton....only 25 pages, read this...

[Christopher Sutch · Rating 3 out of 5]

These one-act plays are interesting...but also clearly the work of a journeyman getting a handle on his craft. Several are prosaic (not to say a little tedious, which is not good in a form that is _short_) and some are _too_ short for the task Wilder sets them (they're just not fully rounded plays, almost like extended scenes). The title play is probably the most interesting on its own terms: it presents 90 years of Christmas dinners in about 20 minutes with some interesting staging to show births and deaths in the family who owns the house. Two other plays show that Wilder was experimenting with the formal techniques that would make _Our Town_ such a revolutionary play 7 years later (something we tend to forget about that piece when every high school in America has performed the thing...or used to): "Pullman Car Hiawatha" and "The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden" both use the conceits of bare stages and the guiding presence of a Stage Manager, but in themselves they don't have the fully determined purpose behind them that _Our Town_ later did.

[Etta Mcquade · Rating 4 out of 5]

I saw and read the play, "The Long Christmas Dinner," and loved the way Wilder goes through four generations of one family, 11 members, and uses entrances and exits, set and props to indicate the passage of time. I give it four stars.
"The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden," I give three stars after seeing it and reading it. I like that Ma Kirby , the voice of family authority, holds the family together, brings spiritual values into their lives, and shows strength in times of adversity.
I have not read the other plays.

[Ashley Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars for The Long Christmas Dinner. The family members clearly have a rapport among them, but I would have to see a production and how they go about depicting the passage of time on stage to get the full gist of this one.

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

So very good

[محمود راضي]

ترجمتي لمسرحية «عشاء الكريسماس الطويل»:

https://boringbooks.net/2020/12/wilde...

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

much bigger fan than I thought I would be! fun structure

[Connie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This play is the first among several one-act plays in an anthology by Thornton Wilder. (I hope to read the other plays sometime after Christmas.) The story takes place at the same dinner table on Christmases over a period of 90 years. It made aware of the changes around our table over the past 39 years and of the likeliness of changes to come. Though we expect chairs to be vacant because of service to Jesus and the church or due to death, I pray there will be no seats empty because of war or family strife or separation from Christ.

I read the other plays, none but one of which made any sense to me. The last one, The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden, The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden was about a family's trip to see an older daughter and the conversations on the way. The mother is the faith verbalizer and in some ways reminded me of me...

[Sookie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wilder's plays have a active time component set in them where the characters grow old on stage and the readers/viewers get to see the change between acts - as was the case in Our Town.

In The Long Christmas dinner, Wilder does all of it in one act with ages and time marked on the stage and merges one event across different times. Its a fascinating take on life, death and relationships.

[Louisette · Rating 4 out of 5]

It began a little slowly. After a few pages I caught the flow, and was quite touched by the beautiful, touching, elegantly simple ending!

[Danilo DiPietro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Captures the elasticity of time

[Cori · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read "The Long Christmas Dinner". It's lovely.