/lit/ - Literature

Can we have a drama thread?

I always enjoyed Shakespeare’s work: he is my favorite writer. However, he is one of the few playwrights whose work I indeed read and enjoyed. The only other playwrights that I have read were the 3 greats from Greece (you know, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides), and, although I think they can’t compare to Shakespeare (the British was a far greater poet), I must admit that their works are remarkable. One of them seem to me extraordinary visionary and bold: The Bacchae.

I decided to read more plays. To be honest I don’t expect to have the same pleasure as when reading Shakespeare, but I am certain that there are a lot of other gems out there. I started by reading “The Misanthrope”, by Moliére, and enjoyed a lot. I am reading now “The Importance of Being Earnest”, and it, too, is proving itself to be a wonderful work.

Next I plan to read this comedy: “The Way of the World”, by William Congreve, of which a scholar said that it is:

“The one play that generations of readers, actors, audiences, and even critics have singled out as the triumphant quintessence of Restoration comedy is Congreve's The Way of the World. Lytton Strachey is guilty of no exaggeration when he ranks it ‘among the most wonderful and glorious creations of the human mind.’ (…)What strikes us most is the language. If Shakespeare's diction, as one of Keats's sonnets suggests, is “the voice of waters,” then surely Congreve's is the sound of champagne, with all the virtues and limitations of that singular beverage.”

I also want to know Shaw (can you guys debate a little about him), Ibsen and Synge (the “The Playboy of the Western World” it’s said to be great).

But I would like to know what are you guys favorite plays, soliloquies, dialogues, etc. So, let’s have a drama thread?