Either this author was before her time, or after her time. One of the plays in this work was spurned by critics, and many did not like the nastiness of the characters. This piece, Big Night, was reminiscent of Glengarry Glen Ross, but in the 1930s, people wanted optimism, not truth. Another piece, which was surrealist and non-linear, was considered to be passe. That was done, and people were moving on. In spite of that, it would fit very well with many of the plays from the late 20th century on. Reading it is enough to help one realize just how well it would play on a modern stage. The main difficulties it would face is the changing role of women, making the women in these plays anachronistic and out of date. In spite of that, they could still play well as long as producers were willing to set them within their own time and not insist on modernizing them to draw the parallel to the present - most audiences, I suspect, would be capable of seeing parallels to the present on their own. After reading these plays, I shall be looking for more Dawn Powell. ( )