Plays and Playwrights

[dreamdead]

What follows is my current reading list for the Ph.D American Literature 1865-present section on dramas. There's not a huge necessity to know more than this, likely, but I welcome thoughts from drama-people like Spinal if I'm missing huge honking holes. Keep in mind that this is subordinate to Literature and Poetry from the same time periods, and those are more important than these on some level, so it's not like I need to know every last American playwright from this time period.

Susan Glaspell's “Trifles” (1916)
Lillian Hellman’s “The Little Foxes” (1939) “Toys in the Attic” (1960)
Eugene O’Neill’s "The Hairy Ape" (1922) “The Iceman Cometh” (39/40) and “Long Day’s Journey into Night”
(1941/1956)
Edward Albee’s "The Zoo Story" (1958), “Sandbox” (‘59) "Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf" (1961-2)
Lorraine Hansberry’s "A Raisin in the Sun" (1959)
Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons” (‘47), “The Death of a Salesman” (1949), “The Crucible” (1953),
Tennessee Williams’s “The Glass Menagerie” (1944) and “A Streetcar Named Desire” (1947), “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” (1955)
Sam Shepard’s “Buried Child” (78) and “True West” (1980)
Beth Henley’s “Crimes of the Heart” (1981)
August Wilson’s “Fences” (1987), “The Piano Lesson” (1990)
Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America” (1992)
Paula Vogel’s “The Baltimore Waltz” (1992) “How I Learned to Drive” (1997)

This thread will contain my reviews of the selected plays here, as well as any others that I read on the side, but it'd be cool if a play discussion thread would receive attention anyway. Make it happen, MC.

[lovejuice]

wonderful idea for a thread. i have been working on my own several short plays and performance pieces. thus the reading of the classic is inevitable. I've just read and reviewed Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. watch the play before, but experiencing it for the second time as a piece of text increases my appreciation.

[Mara]

I love (seeing) plays more than just about any other form of literature. Reading plays is pretty far up there, too. I think I've seen or read all but three on your list. Some great picks. I keep thinking of other playwrights I love from that time period, but they all end of being British. Jerks.

[Hugh_Grant]

I taught a college sophomore-level drama class a few years back, so I welcome this thread. Also, while I'm not usually a fan of American literature, I love American drama. Three of my favorite plays (The Glass Menagerie, Death of a Salesman, and Angels in America) are on your reading list.

[lovejuice]

Also, while I'm not usually a fan of American literature, I love American drama.
me too. recently i have been getting warmer toward american literature, but american drama is really second to none.

(in my head, i am now making a comparison against irish drama. and i stand by my original statement. i don't think i'm familiar with enough british drama to make any comment.)

[Philosophe_rouge]

I love plays. Tennessee Williams is my go-to guy for all that is right with literature/drama/art.

[lovejuice]

i'm about to finish the coast of utopia. it's...alright. i suspect these are plays i would enjoy seeing more than reading. voyage has a solid structure, but stoppard, it seems, does not give a damn about hanging those scences together. it is still better than shipwreck, which is really episodic. you could probably shuffle the whole play, and the result would not have been all that different. with all those characters, it's also hard to keep track of names and events. salvage has been fantastic so far, and i suspect this will become my favorite.

i remember being in new york when the trilogy was running. the whole project is really ambitious, and i think, that's part of its charm. whether the plays, themselves, are good enough to merit that level of ambition remains to be disputed.

[Spinal]

Just noticed this thread. Will return when I have some more time.

[D_Davis]

Saroyan fills a huge honking hole... :)

William Saroyan's The Time of Your Life

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_of_Your_Life

[Spinal]

Lillian Hellman’s “The Little Foxes” (1939) “Toys in the Attic” (1960)
Eugene O’Neill’s “The Iceman Cometh” (39/40) and “Long Day’s Journey into Night” (1941/1956)
Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story (1958), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1961-2)
Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun (1959)
Arthur Miller’s “The Death of a Salesman” (1949), “The Crucible” (1953)
Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie (1944), "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1947), "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (1955)
August Wilson’s "Fences" (1987), "The Piano Lesson" (1990)
Tony Kushner’s "Angels in America" (1992)


I would also suggest:

Thornton Wilder - "Our Town"
Sophie Treadwell - "Machinal"
Something from David Mamet - "American Buffalo" perhaps? or "Oleanna"
Something from Sam Shepard - "Buried Child" perhaps?
David Henry Hwang - "M. Butterfly"

Non-essential but awfully fun:

Naomi Wallace - "One Flea Spare"
Eric Bogosian - "Pounding Nails in the Floor with My Forehead"
Albee - "The Goat"
Steven Dietz - "God's Country"
Kushner - "A Bright Room Called Day"
Neil Labute - "Bash", "The Mercy Seat"
Larry Shue - "Wenceslas Square"
Nicky Silver - "Beautiful Child", "Raised in Captivity"
Mac Wellman - anything

[Hugh_Grant]

My students loved Shepard's "True West". And while it's probably a cliche choice, "Glengarry Glen Ross" would be my Mamet pick.

[kuehnepips]

When I read "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (ages ago) Brick was clearly gay: Paul Newman wasn't.

[Mysterious Dude]

I just read Christopher Marlowe's The Jew of Malta. If you thought The Merchant of Venice was antisemitic, you haven't read this one yet.

He poisons a house full of nuns!

[lovejuice]

a theatre group in thailand puts on dennis kelly's love and money. while the actors didn't do justice to the script, the play itself is quite good. it comprises of seven separated achronological scenes. while they all shares events and characters, regarding them as one whole play is a bit of a stretch. some scenes are simplistic, but the format and the presentation elevate the material. too bad the girl who portrays the main character doesn't live up to the role.

[dreamdead]

I've read "Trifles," "True West," "Fences," and "Death of a Salesman" thus far. Of those, "Death..." is actually the one I'm most indifferent toward, as it's a story that feels too archetypal for me. I'm super-impressed in Shepard and Wilson's plays, as they feel truly lived-in in their construction and language. I love the motif of split identities and a return to a (fake) primal life in Shepard.

I'm confused what we're supposed to do with Gabriel at the end of "Fences"... do we take the "gates of heaven opening up" stage direction seriously? "Trifles" is ingenious for how much it interrogates male discourse and impressions of femininity in the span of ten pages. Looking forward to digging deeper into how these plays are read.

Gonna get to Lorraine Hansberry’s "A Raisin in the Sun" and some O'Neill soon. And thanks for the suggestions, Spinal. The plays are being read fairly quickly, so I hope to get to some before before moving onto poetry/more fiction.

[dreamdead]

Albee's short plays ("Sandbox" and "The Zoo Story") aren't too special, though I like some of the religion symbolism that's now becoming apparent in the latter text. I have to believe that "Who's Afraid...?" will be his most interesting text.

Lorraine Hansberry’s "A Raisin in the Sun" is really, really good stuff. I like how she avoids positioning one of the family's viewpoints over the others; it has a nice polyvocal quality about it that is affirming. I am fascinated by how much some of the family, including the otherwise virtuous Mama, shut down Beneatha whenever she critiques religion or celebrates Pan-Africanism. The former idea, especially, gets her punished, and Hansberry walks a fine line between indicting the Younger family for their reaction and being reactionary with them.

O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey into Night" ends up being one of the more claustrophobic readings I've done in the past few years. Devastating in its psychological critique toward the Tyrone family, and the play operates as a really good overview of the fragmentation of the American family as well. Possibly the best thing I've read for exams thus far. Super-excited to get to "The Iceman Cometh" now...

[lovejuice]

O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey into Night" ends up being one of the more claustrophobic readings I've done in the past few years. Devastating in its psychological critique toward the Tyrone family, and the play operates as a really good overview of the fragmentation of the American family as well. Possibly the best thing I've read for exams thus far.
from what I have read, i can't ever get into o'neill. his work, i think, has a quality of a movie more than a play. oftentimes it focuses too much on the protagonist and lets the events unfold around him, scene by scene. i have never read Long Day's Journey into Night -- though i once did a scene for my drama class -- but those i've read lack structural beauty and chaotic energy of, says, williams's or Albee's.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Just read Susan Glaspell's Trifles. That was a very powerful play, especially considering it's short length. Damning in its critique of gender relations, as well as the growing separation between "neighbors." Really impressive start to my modern drama class.

[dreamdead]

Yeah, that was the first work that my "Masterpieces of American Literature" looked at; as you say, it's a wonderful indictment of gender relations, but I find it most valuable for the way that it suggests that to be aware of a problem among neighbors and to do nothing (especially in matters of marital abuse) is just as criminal as actual murder.

The caged bird metaphor is the only part that is needlessly overdone. Everything else about this one works smoothly.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Yeah, that was the first work that my "Masterpieces of American Literature" looked at; as you say, it's a wonderful indictment of gender relations, but I find it most valuable for the way that it suggests that to be aware of a problem among neighbors and to do nothing (especially in matters of marital abuse) is just as criminal as actual murder.

The caged bird metaphor is the only part that is needlessly overdone. Everything else about this one works smoothly.

Yeah, the lack of intervention being criminal was what I was referring to with my "growing separation of neighbors" comment. That was likely lost in my incredibly poor word choice. :)

Completely agree about the caged bird metaphor. Would have worked had it not been pushed so hard by Glaspell, with Mrs. Hale twice describing Minnie as colorful and like a bird prior to her marriage.

[Hugh_Grant]

Just read Susan Glaspell's Trifles. That was a very powerful play, especially considering it's short length. Damning in its critique of gender relations, as well as the growing separation between "neighbors." Really impressive start to my modern drama class.

I love Trifles, but I'm so weary of teaching it because it's in every...single...literature anthology. (I know I've groused about this phenomenon before--"A Rose for Emily," "Young Goodman Brown," etc.)

I'm glad you enjoyed it. Maybe I'll put it back on the rotation. By the way, a colleague of mine has a prop of a jar of Minnie's preserves. :)

[Kurosawa Fan]

Hedda Gabler kind of blew my mind. Such an unusual examination of sexual politics and the role of women in a patriarchal society, especially for the time it was written. If this is indicative of Ibsen's talents, I'm all in.

[dreamdead]

Ibsen's main classics, that and The Master Builder, are indeed great. Glad you're enjoying him so much. He, Strindberg, and Pirandello were both real finds for me when I took a Masters of 19-20th Century Drama class.

I knocked out Arthur Miller's All My Sons over the weekend. It's fascinating how masterful this and The Crucible are to me when Death of a Salesman is such an interminable bore. There's not much great WW2 fiction I've read, but I love how Miller depicts the profit culture that undergirded some of America's patriotism...

[Spinal]

I'm kind of lukewarm on Ibsen's realistic dramas. But the epic/fairy tale Peer Gynt is probably one of my five favorite plays ever.

[Kurosawa Fan]

I'm kind of lukewarm on Ibsen's realistic dramas. But the epic/fairy tale Peer Gynt is probably one of my five favorite plays ever.

I've been hoping you'd pop in and add some commentary. I'm reading Chekov's The Cherry Orchard this week. Any quick thoughts from anyone? Haven't started it yet, probably will read it in its entirety tomorrow (that's something I love about this drama class thus far: the ability to read a play in one sitting, though I'm sure that will change as we progress, especially with some of the selections on the syllabus).

[Mara]

I've been hoping you'd pop in and add some commentary. I'm reading Chekov's The Cherry Orchard this week. Any quick thoughts from anyone? Haven't started it yet, probably will read it in its entirety tomorrow (that's something I love about this drama class thus far: the ability to read a play in one sitting, though I'm sure that will change as we progress, especially with some of the selections on the syllabus).

Generally speaking, I really like it. It seems to be one of those plays were production means a lot-- I've seen it three times. One was brilliant, one was passable, and one was horrifically, unremittingly boring.

For a few years in college I was convinced I wanted to rewrite this play and set it in the post-Civil War South.

[lovejuice]

I've been hoping you'd pop in and add some commentary. I'm reading Chekov's The Cherry Orchard this week. Any quick thoughts from anyone? Haven't started it yet, probably will read it in its entirety tomorrow (that's something I love about this drama class thus far: the ability to read a play in one sitting, though I'm sure that will change as we progress, especially with some of the selections on the syllabus).

My boring reply is that I love it, but that can apply to almost every Chekov's I have read. Yet I remember very little about it. Somehow his plays don't have that personal warm quality that leaves a mark in your memory.
(Unless, of course, you actually sit through one.)

[Sven]

I like Monty Python's adaptation:

7_ofPVUhO3U

[Spinal]

I don't really understand the appeal of Chekhov. I'm not being very helpful in this thread, I suppose.

[Kurosawa Fan]

I don't really understand the appeal of Chekhov. I'm not being very helpful in this thread, I suppose.

I actually wasn't a fan. As an example of symbolism, I understand its historical relevance, but outside of that I didn't find much to like. It walked the line between farce and tragedy, but didn't succeed in either genre. It wasn't funny enough as a comedy, and lacked any sympathetic characters to bring an emotional core to the tragedy. It was a fairly bland reading. Perhaps seeing it performed live, where one or the other genre is stressed would help, but as is it was a massive disappointment.

[Mara]

As far as Chekov goes, I do prefer "Uncle Vanya." If you get a chance, try that one. If it doesn't speak to you, you might just not really like Chekov.

[Hugh_Grant]

I actually wasn't a fan. As an example of symbolism, I understand its historical relevance, but outside of that I didn't find much to like. It walked the line between farce and tragedy, but didn't succeed in either genre. It wasn't funny enough as a comedy, and lacked any sympathetic characters to bring an emotional core to the tragedy. It was a fairly bland reading. Perhaps seeing it performed live, where one or the other genre is stressed would help, but as is it was a massive disappointment.

I'm just seeing this post now. I taught The Cherry Orchard before in a 200-level drama class, and they loved it for some reason. (I also showed them part of the Charlotte Rampling/Alan Bates adaptation.) Since I'm in the middle of a Russian literature unit in World Lit (Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Chekhov), I'm teaching The Cherry Orchard again. One thing I remember my drama students appreciating was the historical context of the play.

[dreamdead]

I remember thinking that "The Three Sisters" was the best of the Chekhov I read (that, and "Uncle Vanya") back in undergrad. I thought it appropriately captured the sense of ennui, and thought Chekhov's voice modulated perfectly between gender relations, political critique, and overt symbolism.

I should re-read them at some point. I don't think I ever actually read "The Cherry Orchard" all the way through...

[Kurosawa Fan]

I'm just seeing this post now. I taught The Cherry Orchard before in a 200-level drama class, and they loved it for some reason. (I also showed them part of the Charlotte Rampling/Alan Bates adaptation.) Since I'm in the middle of a Russian literature unit in World Lit (Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Chekhov), I'm teaching The Cherry Orchard again. One thing I remember my drama students appreciating was the historical context of the play.

I'm pretty sure this is the first piece of Russian lit that I haven't downright loved. I guess the streak had to end sometime.

[lovejuice]

Hedda Gabler kind of blew my mind. Such an unusual examination of sexual politics and the role of women in a patriarchal society, especially for the time it was written. If this is indicative of Ibsen's talents, I'm all in.


Ibsen's main classics, that and The Master Builder, are indeed great. Glad you're enjoying him so much.

Weird maybe, but I consider Hedda and Hilde to be an anti-thesis of one another. I love both plays, and find it fascinating that Ibsen could write two characters so opposite in nature during a span of merely two years.

[lovejuice]

Treat myself to some lesser known Shakespeare's, and Pericles turns out to be just wonderful. The very first scene is so immense -- perhaps among the most powerful of Shakespeare -- that it casts the shadow over the whole play. The structure of the play itself is very non-Shakespearean, and delightfully so.

[Irish]

Lear.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/episodes/king-lear/watch-the-play/487/

[Raiders]

Lear.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/episodes/king-lear/watch-the-play/487/

Yeah... I'm all over that. Greatest thing ever written.

[Irish]

Yeah... I'm all over that. Greatest thing ever written.

It's streaming on Netflix too. I read the play in high school (English class), but had never seen any kind of performance of it.

This is McKellan backed by the Royal Shakespeare Company, with minimal sets and costumes.

It really is completely amazing, and one of the greatest things mankind has ever produced.

[amberlita]

A new acting core started doing free plays at this grassy amphitheater behind my apartment (which is basically just this little island in the middle of a pond that is literally a 45 second walk from my door). Last year they did Romeo and Juliet and The Taming of the Shrew. This year it's The Tragedy of King Lear. Pretty excited. I've never read it and I really enjoy experiencing Shakespeare on the stage that I'm unfamiliar with. They're running Scapin right now as well but haven't gotten a chance to see either though I've mostly just been anticipating the former. Anybody seen or read the latter have some thoughts?