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Poor Aubrey
Paperback
ISBN13: 9781025913094
Publisher: Tradd Street Press
Published: Feb 14 2026
Pages: 76
Weight: 0.26
Height: 0.16 Width: 6.14 Depth: 9.21
Language: English
Poor Aubrey is a sharp-witted one-act play by the Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatist George Kelly. This satirical domestic comedy introduces the unforgettable Aubrey Piper, a man whose boundless vanity and penchant for extravagant fabrications create a whirlwind of tension and hilarity within his modest household. Set in a middle-class living room, the play explores the friction between Aubrey's grandiose delusions of wealth and status and the grounded reality of his wife, Amy, and her skeptical mother, Mrs. Fisher.
Kelly expertly dissects the absurdity of social pretension and the fragile nature of the ego. Aubrey's character-a pathological boaster who masks his insignificance with borrowed finery and tall tales-serves as a timeless critique of the show-off archetype. As the family navigates Aubrey's latest embarrassments, the dialogue crackles with the dry wit and keen observation of human nature that defined Kelly's most successful works. Poor Aubrey is not only a compelling character study but also the creative foundation for Kelly's later masterpiece, The Show-Off. It remains a significant example of early 20th-century American drama, offering readers and performers a masterful blend of irony and social commentary.
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