Floyd Dell’s A Long Time Ago is a short tragic fantasy with a production history nearly as colorful as the play’s story itself. The director of the original production costumed the characters to look like figures in a card game and had the actors wear wooden clogs that made them about eight inches taller. The result was unintended laughter from the audience. Today, the play reads more like a melodramatic fable, but the themes that audiences would have gravitated towards in 1913 are still very much present. A Long Time Ago packs a lot into its ten minutes and offers interesting material for high school or college and university theatre courses and short play festivals alike.
A Long Time Ago guide sections
