" The theme is hinted at in the play's ironic title, and " earnestness " is repeatedly alluded to in the dialogue, Algernon says in Act II, " one has to be serious about something if one is to have any amusement in life " but goes on to reproach Jack for ' being serious about everything '".

The play's very title, with its mocking paradox ( serious people are so because they do not see trivial comedies ), introduces the theme, it continues in the drawing room discussion, " Yes, but you must be serious about it.

The four lovers are then made to believe that they were dreaming what took place in the forest ( hence the play's title A Midsummer Night's Dream ).

Although these brief exchanges are the only direct references in the work to the play's title, they presage the fates of the two main characters: Thomasina's early death and Septimus's voluntary exile from life.

Laughton played the title role at the play's premiere in Los Angeles on 30 July 1947 and later that year in New York.

Among the original cast were John Normington as Fitz-Oblong, Michael Jayston as the play's narrator, Bolt perennial Leo McKern as the title character, and Terence Rigby and a young Malcolm McDowell in supporting roles.

Jodelle himself took the title role, and the cast included his friends Remy Belleau and Jean de la Peruse, in honour of the play's success the friends organized a little etc.

The title refers both to that proof and to the play's central question: Can Catherine prove the proof's authorship?

Eileen McKenney, the inspiration for the title character, and her husband, novelist and screenwriter Nathanael West, were killed in a car accident four days before the Broadway opening, as they traveled to New York to attend the play's premiere.

According to Melchiori, scholars have often assumed that this play, the title of which was not stated in the letter of 15 April 1598 from George Nicolson ( Elizabeth I's Edinburgh agent ) to Lord Burghley noting the public unrest, was a comedy ( one that does not survive ), but the play's portrayal of Scots is so virulent that it is likely that the play was, officially or unofficially, banned, and left forgotten by Heminges and Condell.

The play's title has often been changed in new productions, sometimes being referred to as simply Giovanni and Annabella — the play's leading, incestuous brother-and-sister characters ; in a nineteenth-century work it is coyly called The Brother and Sister.

The title page of the play's first printed edition states that the play was often acted at the Globe Theatre, which was most likely true.

The confusion is compounded by the fact that in the original pressing of the First Folio, the play's pages are unnumbered, and the title has obviously been squeezed into the Table of Contents.

Ben Brantley of The New York Times wrote: " Ms. Gyllenhaal provides the essential bridge between the parts of the play's title.

The play's title character is an established figure of the popular culture and folklore of the time who appeared in songs and stories — a body of lore the play draws upon.

The title refers to Lola's missing dog, who remains lost at the play's end.

The title role was created by Sarah Bernhardt in the play's premiere on 15 March 1900 at the Théàtre Sarah Bernhardt.

Ibsen disliked the translator William Archer's use of the word " Ghosts " as the play's title, whereas the Norwegian " Gengangere " would be more accurately translated as " The Revenants ", which literally means " The Ones who Return ".

The rapist doctor played Schubert's composition Death and the Maiden during the act of rape ; hence the play's title.

An alternative title, All is True, is recorded in contemporary documents, the title Henry VIII not appearing until the play's publication in the First Folio of 1623.

The title page of the 1595 quarto advertised the play as " Newly set foorth, overseene and corrected, / By W. S ." An identification of " W. S ." with William Shakespeare apparently led to the play's inclusion among the seven works that Philip Chetwinde added to the second impression of his Shakespeare Third Folio in 1664 — which in turn led to the inclusion of Locrine in the Shakespeare Apocrypha.

The play's original title is unknown.

This and Ophelia's burial ceremony, which is characteristically Catholic, make up most of the play's Catholic connections.

The play's brevity and certain aspects of its staging ( for instance, the large proportion of night-time scenes and the unusually large number of off-stage sounds ) have been taken as suggesting that the text now extant was revised for production indoors, perhaps at the Blackfriars Theatre, which the King's Men acquired in 1608.

Working within the social conventions of late Victorian London, the play's major themes are the triviality with which it treats institutions as serious as marriage, and the resulting satire of Victorian ways.

Act II opens with Vladimir singing a recursive round about a dog, which could illustrate the cyclical nature of the play's universe, and also point toward the play's debt to the carnivalesque, music hall traditions, and vaudeville comedy ( this is only one of a number of canine references and allusions in the play ).

The play's American première was at the Garrick Theatre in New York City in October 1922, where it ran for 184 performances, a production in which Spencer Tracy and Pat O ' Brien played robots in their Broadway debuts.

He reprised the role in the play's film adaptation, which was released in 1963.

The play's set features a large table, which is used by the characters in both past and present.

Efforts to establish the play's date of composition and genesis have been complicated by its uncertain relationship with another Elizabethan play with an almost identical plot but different wording and character names, A Pleasant Conceited Historie, called the taming of a Shrew, which is often theorised to be a reported text of a performance of The Shrew, a source for The Shrew, or an early draft ( possibly reported ) of The Shrew.

The Revenger's Tragedy was adapted into Alex Cox's film Revengers Tragedy, the opening credits of which attribute the play's authorship to Middleton.

At the start of the play, Dionysus gives us the exposition and from which we can highlight the play's central conflict ; the invasion of Greece by an Asian religion.

Indeed, the play's situation was almost bound to be better than its resolution, which by comparison seemed trite and anticlimactic.

However in the 2002 film version which starred Judi Dench, Colin Firth, Rupert Everett and Reese Witherspoon-the lines were dropped even though this film re-incorporated episodes and characters in an earlier version of the play that Wilde had been encouraged to drop before the play's first performance.

Mrs. Hardcastle is a contrast to her husband, which provides the humour in the play's opening.

Hampton attempted to turn the play's success to his own advantage, giving interviews to the press, gate-crashing a producers ' party, and beginning a campaign of harassment against Guare that included phone calls and death threats, prompting Guare to apply for a restraining order in April 1991, which was unsuccessful.

Only the Old Bailey trial against Penguin Books for alleged obscenity in publishing the unexpurgated paperback edition of the novel prevented the play's transfer to the much bigger Wyndham's Theatre, for which it had already been licensed by the Lord Chamberlain's Office on 12 August 1960 with passages censored.

Michael Hattaway offers an alternate, sympathetic view of Joan which argues that the character's movement from saintly to demonic is justified within the text: " Joan is the play's tragic figure, comparable with Faulconbridge in King John.

Contrary to later legend, the words " virgin ," " mistress ," and " pregnant ," all of which had been in the original play's dialogue, were not singled out as objectionable.

It included a Technicolor sequence, which featured Neagle singing the play's most famous song, " Alice Blue Gown ".

After one of the play's famous scenes, in which Cyrano defeats Valvert in a duel while completing a poem, d ' Artagnan approaches Cyrano and congratulates him on his fine swordsmanship.

Most scholars support 1607 or early 1608 as most likely, which accords well with what is known about the play's likely co-author, George Wilkins, whose extant literary career seems to span only three years, 1606 to 1608.

There are no contemporary allusions to the play by which its date of composition may be determined ; nor is there an agreed means of explaining the play's " loose ends and inconsistencies ".