Who likes to read plays?

[BurtWorm]

I used to read them a lot in high school--Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Waiting for Godot, Death of a Salesman, a bunch by Tennessee Williams. Occasionally I read or reread a Shakespeare play.

Mostly I read nonfiction these days, but for some reason, a couple of weekends ago I picked up a Modern Library edition of Chekhov's Big Four: The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard. I've just finished Uncle Vanya, which has had an effect on me like a drug. Not an upper. But I'm really glad I read it and am looking forward to the remaining two plays in the book. (I saw Uncle Vanya on 42nd Street a few years ago--Louis Malle's superb film, with Wallace Shawn, Andre Gregory and Julianne Moore--but I've never seen Chekhov on stage. I wasn't really aware how strange his plays are.)

So who else likes to read plays, and which do you recommend?

[mitchum]

1. "cue spooky music" I love reading plays as text...

much more than I "enjoy" watching them. Besides all those worthies you mentioned I also enjoy Pinter, Soyinka, and the original subversive Marlowe (Eliot was right when he said that Marlowe invented black comedy with "The Jew of Malta")

[BurtWorm]

3. I KNEW you would show up in this thread!

:scared:

[DCDemo]

2. 7 Wagonfulls of Cotton and other Short Plays by Tenn Williams

He is a FANTASTIC playwright....and reading and imagining the characters is an incredible experience.

[mitchum]

15. He's our best

O'Neill brought it into being and Williams brought the poetry

[roughsatori]

17. I can't believe I forgot O'Neill in my list

His writing has that roughness and brilliance that is the mark of the best American writing. I know that sounds clichéd--but it is true. The downfall of many great American writers is that they are brilliant without the edge--or all rough-hewn without the brilliance.

And I agree abut the poetics of Williams best writing--spectacular.

[TheZoo]

4. Me!

Not sure of their significance, but I've read "The Odd Couple", "1776", "Arsenic and Old Lace", "Guys and Dolls" and "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead".

In high school, I was in Arsenic (Johnathan Brewer), Guys (Sky Masterson), and after was in Rosencrantz (English Embassador); I loved the movie version of the rest of the movies and had to get the book.

I would recommend picking up "Playwrights at Work: The Paris Review". It doesn't include the actual plays, rather it is interviews with the playwrights. I borrowed it from the library two weeks ago, and they may get it back next year :-)

[aquart]

6. Yes! Anything by Stoppard!

[BurtWorm]

7. That book sounds very interesting.

I always preferred reading plays and seeing them to ever wanting to perform in them. A well crafted play is a beautiful thing.

[TheZoo]

18. About "Playwrights at Work.."

While you don't get the actual play, you do read what the playwright thought about a particular play. Some of the interviews get into the specific scene / line, other interviews are more general about the play. I'd recommend at least checking the book out for a read through.

[BurtWorm]

20. Who's in it? Which plays do they talk about?

Tony Kushner, by any chance? Or Athol Fugard?

[aquart]

5. Jean Kerr's Mary, Mary. Marston's The Malcontent.

Mary, Mary may be dated, but it's funny as hell and the structure is perfection.

The Malcontent is Jacobean. The protagonist is an insult comedian, I kid you not. And everytime someone is about to get killed, you get faked out. Also, there is just the most delicious speech in which the Malcontent tries to persuade the usurper to his throne (well, okay, the people kicked him out for being irritating but they weren't ENTITLED to do that) that being cuckolded by his wife is the proof of his greatness because ALL the truly great were cuckolds, and he lists them: Agamemnon, Hercules.....etc.

If you want dark, Arthur Miller's The Crucible which literally sent me reeling into a wall. Also, his All My Sons about war profiteering, ever so timely. Shaw's Major Barbara and Arms and the Man. And Man and Superman.

Ionescu's Rhinoceros, about a world becoming fascist, also timely.

O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night.

Take another look at Measure for Measure, which has a scene with a nun on bended knee using the language of a blowjob, followed by Angelo's monolog to his penis.

[mitchum]

8. Do you like Miller's "The Price"?

I think it's a brilliant and overlooked work. Deals with "smaller matters" than most Miller, but it is heartbreaking.

[JohnKleeb]

9. I read the Crucible this year for English actually

i rememeber as an 8th grader and this was round when I got real political we read Inherit the Wind.

[BurtWorm]

13. Inherit the Wind is a blast, so to speak.

What a great subject for a play!

[JohnKleeb]

16. Yep

Really kinda sparked my interest in one of my favorite lawyers of all time, Clarence Darrow. It was very interesting too, heck I think I was the only one who really enjoyed that play and I am not a theatre guy, I am a reader and writer but not a theatre dude or a playwright but it was interesting, and its also how I learned about another great group, the ACLU. 8th grade oh it seems like it was yesterday, yet the knowledge I gained that year has helped me more than ever, that was the year the chimp was selected too.

[BurtWorm]

19. I enjoyed 8th grade, myself.

It was quite a bit longer ago. I read a lot of the plays I mentioned in the first post of this thread that year. Trials are, of course, very dramatic, and on top of that, add a debate about tradition and modernity and, voila, you've created a totally compelling piece of theater.

[BurtWorm]

10. I never heard of Marston or The Malcontent

but now I'm intrigued! Thanks for that recommendation.

:toast:

(Got to go dig out Measure for Measure, now, too!)

[NYC]

11. Ibsen.

Hedda Gabler

[BurtWorm]

14. Love that play!

Love that whole period of art, when people believed in the Book that Will Change the World.

[roughsatori]

12. Albee and Genet and Shakespeare and Sam Shepard are great reads

perhaps better then the productions I have seen. I would recommend taking a favorite monologue of Shakespeare and reading it until it is clear to you what the meaning is--then memorize it, then recite it for friends who are neutral to Shakespeare to see if you can convey the meaning to them. (That is the test I use to see if I really grasp a poem--and I have a horrible textual memory so have to use the printed page as guide.)

"The Maids" by Genet and "Cowboy Mouth" by Shepard and Smith would be the 2 I would recommend. Oh, "Who's afraid of Virginia Wolfe" is a GREAT read. I read it first in 6th grade and it felt like I was reading about an upscale, educated version of my parents.

[Shakespeare]

23. SAM SHEPARD!!

One of the most important playwrights this country has ever produced, and woefully under-appreciated.

Geography of a Horse Dreamer is one of my faves...there's a moment in the play that's had a history of freaking out audiences (including, famously, one Bob Dylan). It's more an emotional than a physical thing, and I got the same reaction from just reading the play.

Also love Suicide in B Flat and A Lie of the Mind.

edited to include this rather tasty photo of the man:

[roughsatori]

27. I saw many of Shepard's plays in New York

One night in 1980 or so I saw a night of his shorter plays with one longer one. It went on for hours with 3 breaks, and I was mesmerized. I don't know if I dreamt it--but I think I saw some film clips of Patti Smith and Sam Shepard performing "Cowboy Mouth" in a loft in NYC once.

Just last week I was using Google to read about Shepard and what happened to him.

[BurtWorm]

29. What happened to him?

I know he married Jessica Lange. Did something else happen?

[Shakespeare]

33. Shepard's STILL happenin'!!

And he and the lovely Ms. Lange are not married, but they do cohabitate.

I've done a bit of scholarly work on Shepard (even presented a paper or two on his work), so I'm a wealth of useless (and useful) information on all things Shepard.

Best website for keeping up with the playwright:

http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/theatre_dance/Shepard/shepard.html

The Signature theatre company in NYC did a great year-long retrospective of his work in 1997, and I was fortunate enough to travel up for a couple of them. Saw Killer's Head, Pecos Bill and Action (amazing play) in a single night at Joseph Papp's American Theatre, and literally ran into Shepard as I exited the theatre. He directed the plays that year, and was standing outside smoking a cigarette. Typical Shepard--blue jeans, white t-shirt and leather jacket. A total badass. ;-)

The following night, he and Joseph Chaikin (who became a strange father figure/svengali to Shepard) did readings from When the World Was Green and The War in Heaven. Watching those two interact--and Chaikin was just recovering from a stroke--was one of the strangest and most intimate things I've ever seen.

Shepard's most recent play is The Late Henry Moss.

[roughsatori]

35. Thanks so much for that info and link--what I wrote in my post

is wrong. I will try to find the site (it was a fan site) and send them your post and email. Thanks. Ignorance is a wonderful thing to have dispelled. :)

[Shakespeare]

37. You're welcome. Shepard does detest publicity....

...but fortunately for all of us, he is still writing. He splits his time between his and Lange's ranch in Minnesota and NY/SF (whichever coast his plays are populating at the moment--Henry Moss premiered in SF, then moved to NY).

If you're ever interested enough to pick up a bio on him (and there are several, believe it or not), I highly recommend Don Shewey's. A great read, on both his life and his writing.

[BurtWorm]

38. Along the lines of your Chaikin story

I had a similar fly on the wall view of Merce Cunningham reacting to the maker of a film about Cage and him at the filmmaker's wedding just after Cage died. I was a guest of the bride's, and it was a huge Chasidic affair at Terrace on the Park in Queens (sort of like a cross between a Holiday Inn and the Space Needle). At the end of the wedding, the couple were coming down the center aisle and Cunningham, using a cane, and his young companion stood up. The groom stopped. They looked intensely at each other. Cunnignham's face said everything, and the groom threw his arms around him and held him. It was, as you say, one of the most imtimate moments I shouldn't have seen that I've ever seen.

[Shakespeare]

39. That's a wonderful story...

One rarely sees that kind of intimacy--and I'm obviously not talking about anything sexual--between two men.

With Shepard, who is notoriously emotionally guarded, it was fascinating to watch him be both tender with and utterly enraptured by Chaikin.

[roughsatori]

43. Merce Cunningham is incredible. I was Friends with

William Burdick who had been in Merce's company and was one of the first men to dance with Martha Graham. He was much older then I but filled with a harsh love of art. Another friend who was in Merce's company told me that in class one day he drew a circle on a board. Then he broke the dancers in two groups and two at a time they were to dance from opposite ends on the floor the outline of the circle. All the dancers would meet half-way and do pas-de-deuxs and acrobatics to get around each other. Halfway through Cunningham screamed that they were not doing what he wanted. That they should have danced right into each other so he could see what would happen. In other words he was angry they were too timid for the collision. He walked out of the class early.

Forgive my reminiscences--as I am am a bi-polar and agoraphobic I am reduced to recollection.

[Shakespeare]

44. Do NOT apologize for your reminiscences.

They're a pleasure to read. Thank you for sharing with us.

[BurtWorm]

46. For someone who's agoraphobic, sounds like you've led an interesting

life out there in the marketplace.

:hi:

[roughsatori]

47. Well I have been around the block as they say

But I have not gone outside for over 2 years. The last time I got out of a mental hospital for bi-polar disorder I decided not to take medication and so can't make it out of the house. I was an "almost famous" poet scheduled to be featured in 2 major anthologies and wrote poetry for 2 Emmy award winning shorts before I went a little too nuts. Even my friends can't find me. I'm thinking of taking up origami. LOL


I always thought of myself as being in the Chatterton, Francois Villon mode--how strange to wake up as Emily Dickinson.

[BurtWorm]

48. I shouldn't laugh, but that was funny!

Here's some white light for you, rs, for what it's worth. I hope it's worth something!

[roughsatori]

51. As Lou Reed sang:

White light moved in me through my brain
White light gonna make-a me go insane
White light, tickled down to my toes
White light, I said now, goodness knows.
White light it lightens up my eyes
Don't you know it fills me up with surprise
White heat tickle down to my toes
White light, I'll tell you now, goodness knows.

Thanks for the electricity.

[Shakespeare]

49. Then this...for you.

An origami crane. ;-)


Peace.

[roughsatori]

50. Thanks so much, I am laughing in a warm way

Oh no, now I'm turning into a sentimental person--how revolting.

[roughsatori]

34. From what I found: he gave playwriting up and refuses to talk about it

sort of like Rimbaud--only older, richer, and syphilis free. I know Jessica Lange is beautiful and talented--but I would rather have dated Verlaine--even though I too would have to shoot him. My favorite line from a Rimbaud letter goes something like this: "Paul showed up today pawing a Rosary within an half hour I had him cursing the Blessed Virgin and Holy Spirit."

Maybe Shepard is writing in private the way Duchamp worked on "Etant Donne (The Waterfall)" for 20 years in secret only to be found on his death. (If you ever are in Philly--get yourself to the museum and see the Duchamp room. They have "Etant Donne," "Nude Descending the Staircase," "The Bride Stripped Bare," and other important works. And a Brancuzi room to boot. As well as Morton Shamberg's "God" an early example of assemblage that I love.

Sorry for the tangential post.

[BurtWorm]

40. Not at all. I forgot Duchamp's in Philly.

That's a reason to do more in that town that pass through it on the train.

[roughsatori]

45. If you go the Rodin Museum is a walk away

and the largest collection of his works outside of Paris. Then there's the Mutter Museum for Medical Oddities, and the Barnes Foundation.

[BurtWorm]

25. They are great READS, as you so aptly put it.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf is a perfect example. I was about the same age when I read it, maybe a year older. I remember that thick book with the white cover, the acts separated from each other like chapters... <sigh> It was a great read. Williams plays were fun to read too, I remember. Especially in the summer, when it's dripping hot.

[roughsatori]

31. It's funny, I wanted to write Euripides, Racine, and Jarry

but had to be honest with myself in that they are not really the best "reads." That sounds shallow I know--but whatchagonnado. I did see a great performance of Ubu Roi once. I forget where or by who. Peter Brooks? The Living Theater? I really can't remember.

[BurtWorm]

32. Was it any good? I mean, did you "enjoy" it

or just feel assaulted?

PS: Of course, maybe you could have enjoyed feeling assaulted...

[roughsatori]

36. I do enjoy assaulting--but don't like to give up the control

to be assaulted. But I recall it was loud, with good simple lighting. The sets were simple and transitions of scene where done by changing a placard on the stage. It made the words stand out. I have to admit that I have a curiosity for things like that. I once saw a reconstruction of a Maholy Nagy performance and loved it--and it is hard for me to know if it was out of my love of the history of the Avant-Garde or how the work was in that moment.

[BrotherBuzz]

21. Nope, not me...

But I may have a go at this new Mark Twain play that has been recently unearthed and published...

Is He Dead ?

A Comedy in Three Acts

by Mark Twain,
Edited by Shelley Fisher Fishkin,
Illustrations by Barry Moser

University of California Press
Due/Published October 2003, 270 pages, cloth
ISBN 0520239792

The University of California Press is delighted to announce the new publication of this three-act play by one of America's most important and well-loved writers. A highly entertaining comedy that has never appeared in print or on stage, Is He Dead? is finally available to the wide audience Mark Twain wished it to reach. Written in 1898 in Vienna as Twain emerged from one of the deepest depressions of his life, the play shows its author's superb gift for humor operating at its most energetic. The text of Is He Dead?, based on the manuscript in the Mark Twain Papers, appears here together with an illuminating essay by renowned Mark Twain scholar Shelley Fisher Fishkin and with Barry Moser's original woodcut illustrations in a volume that will surely become a treasured addition to the Mark Twain legacy.


Richly intermingling elements of burlesque, farce, and social satire with a wry look at the world market in art, Is He Dead? centers on a group of poor artists in Barbizon, France, who stage the death of a friend to drive up the price of his paintings. In order to make this scheme succeed, the artists hatch some hilarious plots involving cross-dressing, a full-scale fake funeral, lovers' deceptions, and much more.


Mark Twain was fascinated by the theater and made many attempts at playwriting, but this play is certainly his best. Is He Dead? may have been too "out there" for the Victorian 1890s, but today's readers will thoroughly enjoy Mark Twain's well-crafted dialogue, intriguing cast of characters, and above all, his characteristic ebullience and humor. In Shelley Fisher Fishkin's estimation, it is "a champagne cocktail of a play--not too dry, not too sweet, with just the right amount of bubbles and buzz."

www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/10118.html

[BurtWorm]

26. Sounds really intriguing!

I wonder if he ever got any of his plays produced.

[BrotherBuzz]

28. Yep!

http://jeffcoweb.jeffco.k12.co.us/high/golden/act/51acts.htm

[NightTrain]

22. I've read dozens of 'em over the years

If you're looking for comedy, check out "The Actor's Nightmare" and "Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You," both by Christopher Durang. Just *reading* those plays had me roaring with laughter, so I can well imagine how funny a good production of them would be! Another hilarious play (alebit darkly hilarious) is John Guare's "House of Blue Leaves."

On a more serious note, there's always "A Streetcar Named Desire," "Long Day's Journey Into Night," "A Raisin in the Sun," or "any of Shakespeare's tragedies.

Those oughta keep ya busy for a while, huh? ;)

[BurtWorm]

24. I haven't read Durang

But I have read Guare, Williams, O'Neill, Hansbury and Shakespeare. A Raisin in the Sun is truly a great American play, one of my all-time favorites.

[Kat45]

30. I used to enjoy reading plays in college.

Waiting for Godot was a favorite. Brecht's Three Penny Opera. I'm trying to remember...I think it was called Dutchman by Leroi Jones (now known as Amiri Baraka (sp)--that was a potent one. A strange one was Ubu Roi by Alfred Jarry.

I guess I tended to like the weirder/less mainstream plays. :-)

[roughsatori]

41. I have to add one more: "The Boys in the Band"

I know it is probably considered dated and filled with self-hatred--but I still love it. Even the movie is good. A friend of mine who was a gay punk rocker use to have the album of the play and we would get high and listen to it at top volume. Once the neighbors called the police on us. I remember laughing when my friend Joe told the police we were listening to "A work of homosexual genius," And that "genius by its nature has to be loud." The officer laughed and said "just keep it down."

[BurtWorm]

42. I'm guessing that wasn't in Dallas.

;)