
A bustling Boston apartment sets the stage for this light‑hearted farce, where Mrs. Roberts is scrambling to get her husband, Edward, ready for an evening soirée at the Millers’. Her meticulous checklist of gloves, fans and fur boots is matched only by Edward’s yawns and bewildered attempts to keep up, creating a comic clash of domestic duty and social expectation.
The dialogue crackles with witty banter as the couple navigates the absurdities of polite society—Mrs. Roberts’ frantic rehearsals of the evening’s itinerary and Edward’s desperate search for a coherent excuse. Their exaggerated concerns about Mrs. Miller’s temper and the timing of a mysterious “Willis” add layers of farcical misunderstanding, promising a lively parade of mishaps and chuckles.
Through sharp, rapid‑fire exchanges, the play pokes fun at the rituals of Victorian social life, turning a simple act of getting dressed into a cascade of comic obstacles that keep listeners both amused and empathetic toward the hapless husband.
Full title
Evening Dress Farce
Language
en
Duration
~43 minutes (41K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Credits
Produced by David Edwards, Josephine Paolucci and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive.)
Release date
2009-01-24
Rights
Public domain in the USA.
Subjects

1837–1920
A leading voice of American realism, he wrote sharply observed novels about everyday life and helped shape the literary culture of the late 1800s. As an editor and critic, he also encouraged writers such as Henry James and Sarah Orne Jewett while building a reputation as the “Dean of American Letters.”
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