Fata Morgana (Mirage); a comedy in three acts

(no dust jacket) [light handling wear, very faint soiling to covers, a bit of darkening to the spine; attractive custom bookplate and vintage bookseller's ticket on front pastedown (see notes)]. (The Theatre Guild Library) Series (frontispiece drawing, two B&W photographs) Per the title page, this is the "Theatre Guild version" of this play, as first presented in New York by the Guild in May 1924. (The production, directed by Philip Moeller, ran for 120 performances between March and September; the play also had a brief (27 performances) revival in late 1931/early 1932.) It's the story of a young man who becomes romantically smitten, and subsequently rejected, by an older woman, and was based on Vajda's own first love affair after he first came to Budapest, circa 1910. There are two prefatory pieces in this volume: "A Producer's Problem," by Moeller, and an Introduction by Burrell. The former discusses the difficulties in balancing the play's elements of comedy and tragedy; the latter is mostly a recounting of playwright Vajda's career, and includes the information (also reported in the contemporary press) that this play, written in 1915, was originally rejected for production by theatres in Vajda's native Hungary, but was successfully staged in several other European countries. (I've also seen mention of a later Hungarian production, in 1921, that included a young Bela Lugosi in the cast.) Vajda himself came to America not long after his play, and quickly established himself as a successful screenwriter, with notable credits on a number of Ernst Lubitsch's early talkies.

Product Info

Publisher: Doubleday, Page & Company

Year: 1924

Type: Used

Binding: Hardcover

First Edition

Seller Info

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