Both Your Houses

Last updated
Both Your Houses
Written by Maxwell Anderson
Date premieredMarch 6, 1933
Place premiered Royale Theatre
New York City, New York
Original languageEnglish
Genre Drama
Setting Cannon House Office Building, Washington, D.C.

Both Your Houses is a 1933 play written by American playwright Maxwell Anderson. It was produced by the Theatre Guild and staged by Worthington Miner with scenic design by Arthur P. Segal. It opened at the Royale Theatre on March 5, 1933 and ran for 72 performances closing May 6, 1933. It was awarded the 1933 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and included in Burns Mantle's The Best Plays of 1932–1933.

Contents

The title is an allusion to Mercutio's line "a plague on both your houses" in Romeo and Juliet . [1]

Plot

Reception

Reviewing a 1992 production, Variety described Houses as reminiscent of — but "far more bleak and despairing than" — Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Born Yesterday , calling it "bitter" and "cynical", and assessing the play's message as "heavy-handed" and its characters as "tend(ing) to two-dimensionality." [2]

Cast

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References

  1. Review: “Both Your Houses” Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine , in the Hyde Park Herald , by Anne Spiselman; published November 5, 2014; retrieved December 3, 2014
  2. Review: ‘Both Your Houses’, by Tom Jacobs, in Variety; published August 28, 1992; retrieved May 30, 2016