So, I've decided that I need to start reading more plays

[Rabrrrrrr]

So I've ordered a couple from Amazon, and had my local library stack a bunch up for me.

As an aside, I love that libraries are on the web now, so that I can go in, look at the catalogue of my library and the 20 libraries they share books with, click on all the books I want, and then people at the library will go to the stacks and pull them all down and send me an email when the order is ready. THAT is fucking cool.

Anyway, that was off topic.

But plays, though I've SEEN shitloads, are something that, outside of Shakespeare, I bet I've read less than ten. And for a literature and art lover like me, that's damned sad.

I've finally decided to take the plunge and start reading them.

I'm starting off easy with recent tony award winners (some of which I've seen) like Copenhagen, Wit, Proof, Life x3, and plays by those writers that I haven't seen like Corpus Christi and Art. And also, finally, I will read Waiting for Godot, even though over the years I've read many sections of it. It will be nice finally to find out how all those sections fit together. :-)

It's a slow beginning, I know. But, hey, you gotta start somewhere, and all those plays, though not "classics" since they're so new, are FUCKING GOOD.


This guy who wrote Corpus Christi intrigues me, and I want to read more of his plays.

I'd also like to read a bunch of one-act plays - anyone have good ideas on anthologies of one-acts?

[JimmyJazz]

1. Plays are definitely a unique read.

I enjoyed the works of Tennessee Williams myself.

[Rabrrrrrr]

2. Haven't read any

I've read little of old plays (except the really old ones).

Mostly Shakespeare or old Greek, or modern.

I should read Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, though, now that I think about it.

[JimmyJazz]

7. Cat is one of the first plays that I read and enjoyed reading.

The Glass Menagerie is also an awesome read.

[Rabrrrrrr]

3. Jesus Christ, doesn't anyone read plays here that they can respond?

:wtf:

[enigmatic]

5. "The Dumbwaiter"- Harold Pinter

http://www.haroldpinter.org/plays/index.shtml

[Rabrrrrrr]

6. Pinter is good!

I came across his play The Birthday Party last year, and loved it. The book had another play, but I can't remember what, and the list of plays you offered didn't ring any bells at all.

[tarkus]

4. I recommend "Guy Domville" by Henry James

It is that James quality that you know and love, just in play format. One can't go wrong there.

[nosmokes]

8. you're doing the right thing - read anything that strikes your fancy

if there's a pro or semi-pro theatre near you i'll bet they'd love to have you read some stuff and synopsize(issat a word?) it for 'em to help narrow down their possible choices. you might also get to read some original manuscripts that way. i always like the classic stuff, oneill, williams, and the gang. i'm drawing a brain blank right now but i'll think of some more. but read it all, everything you can lay hands on.

and bless you for supporting live theatre!

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

9. It's been a long, long time since I read any plays but

I went through a period during college when I read quite a few and I enjoyed "No Exit" by Sartre, "Mother Courage" by Brecht, "Hedda Gabler" by Ibsen, "Long Day's Journey Into Night" by O'Neill, "The Madwoman Of Chaillot" by Giraudoux, "No One Writes The Colonel" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, "Antigone" by Anouilh, "Cyrano de Bergerac" by Rostand, "Exit The King" by Ionesco, "The Cherry Orchard" by Chekov, among several others. Of course Moliere and Shakespeare with their massive bodies of work also occupied a lot of my reading time.

But I'm ignorant of anything done in the theater in the last few decades, I'm afraid.

[Rabrrrrrr]

10. Ah, Moliere. We did "Scapino" when I was in high school.

Pretty cool!

"No Exit" is another one I really should read, since that's get mentioned an awful lot, and I've never seen it.

I saw one Chekov play, but I can't remember what it was. It wasn't the one you mentioned, though. It was great! It was at an outdoor Shakespeare theater (APT in Wisconsin), where we saw The Tempest in the afternoon (and in the rain!!) and then the Chekov play was the evening play, and the rain had ended between plays, so the day worked fucking perfect.

I'd say that the play was the one about the two disillusioned and hopeless Russian guys suffering from the choices they made and needed to make, but that describes, I think, every Chekov play.

[NoQuarter]

14. My first role on stage was in a play by Moliere.

The farce The Italian Straw Hat

I hadn't come out yet, so the role of the fop was kinda lost on me at the time. I never got why I was such a hit. Maybe because I was always changing clothes and half naked every time I appeared on stage. Hmmm.

[swimboy]

27. Welcome to DU, nod4rod!

:hi:

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

15. "No Place To Be Somebody" by Charles Gordone is another one

that I recall reading at one time when I was young. And then there's "Man And Superman" by George Bernard Shaw.

[u4ic]

17. Everyone here

should read the Madwoman of Chaillot. Here's a synopsis: http://www.talkinbroadway.com/ob/10_3_01.html

I think every Ibsen play should be read. Genius is an understatement.

Susan Glaspell's Trifles.

I am a huge fan of Joe Orton (the subject of the movie Prick Up Your Ears) and for a dose of Restoration comedy, try Congreve's Way of the World.

If you like raw and edgy, Brad Fraser might just be up your alley.

Michel Tremblay (Les Belles Soeurs) is one of Canada's best known playwrights. Tomson Highway is another fabulous Canuck. His two best known pieces are the Rez Sisters and Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing, both set on native reserves.

Timberlake Wertenbaker's Our Country's Good is a play about the first penal colony in Oz.

For farce, Alan Ayckborn.

John Osborne's Look Back in Anger.

Harold Pinter.

Tom Stoppard - Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.

Peter Schaffer's Equus

I'm sure I can think better in the am, and add to the list.

[Rabrrrrrr]

18. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - hilarious!

I saw a performance of that at Stratford in Ontario, with the same cast that I saw do Hamlet. We saw Hamlet first, and it was such utter fun to see all those characters (esp. the guy playing Hamlet) who were so serious in Hamlet, then acting perfectly outrageously and obviously having a fricking blast playing their characters in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.

I loved it!!

And Stratford, in Ontario, should be every Shakespeare lover's dream destination.

[Rabrrrrrr]

19. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - hilarious!

I saw a performance of that at Stratford in Ontario, with the same cast that I saw do Hamlet. We saw Hamlet first, and it was such utter fun to see all those characters (esp. the guy playing Hamlet) who were so serious in Hamlet, then acting perfectly outrageously and obviously having a fricking blast playing their characters in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.

I loved it!!

And Stratford, in Ontario, should be every Shakespeare lover's dream destination.

[u4ic]

23. My ex and I were friends

with a chap who was an assistant director at both the Stratford and Shaw festivals, and as I recall he did have a minor role in the former. He also teaches at a well known theatre school.

I have never known anyone to live and breathe Shakespeare as much as he does.

I haven't been for many years, but would love to get back there.

[NoQuarter]

11. I was heavily involved in theater

in HS. Having been bussed to the most affluent HS in the city - with the kids taking everything from golf to acting lessons, I still managed to grab major roles in 6 consecutive productions over 2 years. Reading plays kept my mind active. Anything open to interpretation can do that. My favorites are still Williams, Ibsen, Albee, and Miller. All for their timelessness.

For example, from Albee's Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?:
"What's it gonna be? Truth or illusion?"

Sounds like a choice we all have to make today. Post haste.

No?

(Edited for bad punctuation. Now THAT can fuck up a reading of a line big time.)

[Rabrrrrrr]

12. Dammit, that's another one I need to read

I've never even seen the movie, and that's just a crime, really.

Such a famous and influential play, it's just criminal that I don't know it.

[NoQuarter]

16. Those performances are the standard.

Even Nichelle Nichols in the bar scene. It must have been just moments before she got Uhura in Star Trek

[u4ic]

20. Albee hated Liz Taylor in the role

However he wanted Burton, and they came as a team.

[bliss_eternal]

13. It's not a book of one acts, but I like David Rabe's

In the Boom Boom Room--it's rather dark, but I liked it. :P

Madeline Kahn was Tony nominated for her portrayal of the lead in it's debut.

[IntravenousDemilo]

21. The library you go to should also have editions of

"Best One-Act Plays of (year)", which is a pretty generic title, but one compiler will think some plays were better than others, while another compiler will disagree, and there'll be some overlapping. But it also means that there are a lot of collections with that title or variants of it, and it's not likely that a compiler will choose really bad plays. So that's a good place to start.

If you like Woody Allen, I recommend "Death" and "God", which I've seen published in one volume before.

Peter Shaffer's "White Liars" and "Black Comedy" is a nice double-bill. Actually, you can't go too far wrong with any of his plays, especially "Equus", "The Royal Hunt of the Sun", and "Amadeus".

A couple of plays I have special affection for are "As Is" by William Hoffman and "Talley's Folly" by Lanford Wilson.

It's not exactly the stage, but I recentlly was looking through an anthology of teleplays from the Golden Age of TV, like "Marty" and "Requiem for a Heavyweight".

I find that reading plays is nice for another reason. A play doesn't take as long to finish as a novel -- a couple of hours, maybe, about as long as it takes to watch one.

[Rabrrrrrr]

24. Thanks! Those are all very helpful!

Especially the existence of the anthology. I will have to check on those, too!


And, as a slight chuckle, when I first read your name I thought it was IntravenousDildo.

Sorry! :7

[u4ic]

22. Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You

Christopher Durang. Hilarious.

A FLea in her Ear. Faydeau.

A Raisin in the Sun. One of my favourite plays AND films.

Terence MacAnally.

Shirley Valentine & Educating Rita - Willy Russell.

Miss Julie - Strindberg

[DouglasRussel]

25. No, you need to start playing more reeds!

I thought that was pretty clever.

BTW,

check out www.FWshop.com

Funny stuff.

[swimboy]

26. Arcadia, by Stoppard, I think. Brilliant.

Glad to see the Madwoman of Chaillot already listed.

[Rabrrrrrr]

28. Let me also kick out Metamorphasis - that hit broadway in 2001 or 2

Saw it in performance - fucking brilliant play, and brilliant staging. All played around a shallow pool of water. It was incredible.

Same theater that I saw Life x3 in a year later with Brent Spiner and Helen Hunt.

[swimboy]

30. I saw Metamorphosis when a local university staged it. I agree.

The staging with the pool of water was ingenious and I couldn't believe how all those familiar stories added up to something so much larger.

[Doctor_J]

29. Arthur Miller

Not one-acts, but lots of good stuff there - start with All My Sons. Then rent the movie with Edward G.