Three Plays by Granville-Barker: The Marrying of Ann Leete; The Voysey Inheritance; Waste

Harley Granville-Barker helped reinvent British theatre at the turn of the twentieth century, and these three plays still sting with that revolutionary purpose. "The Voysey Inheritance" exposes the rot beneath a respectable professional family's polished exterior when long-buried secrets surface. "Waste" follows a cabinet minister whose private indiscretion threatens to wreck his political career, wrestling with the collision between ambition and morality. "The Marrying of Ann Leete" offers a subtler excavation of desire and social position, as a young woman navigates the treacherous waters of class and expectation in the English countryside. Granville-Barker strips the veneer from English propriety and reveals the desperate calculations beneath. His characters must choose between honesty and survival, between love and position. These plays have lost none of their power to disturb and compel.