The Bad Seed, Maxwell Anderson's 1955 stage adaptation of a novel by William Marsh, is a psychological study of a child murderess whose evil, disguised by a mask of innocence, is a genetic inheritance from her grandmother.

The Crucible, Arthur Miller's 1953 drama based on the Salem Witch Trials of the seventeenth century, deals with the tragic havoc created by a vengeful girl and her compliant peers when they begin accusing many of Salem's citizens of witchcraft. By obvious implication, the work was an indictment of the investigations then being conducted by HUAC into alleged communist activities in America

Othello, William Shakespeare's great domestic tragedy, written around 1604, centers on the evil machinations of Iago, whose slanderous lies against the innocent Desdemona turn Othello, her husband, savagely against her and lead to her murder and Othello's suicide.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie...