/lit/ - Literature

>>5187980
ubu roi

i like the decision

but then , im a die-hard communist

>>5187993
sheeeeeeit

>>5187993
ok, i needed to look that up

what the fuck man?

>>5187994
>liking brecht
pretentious undergrad pls go

>>5187994
Because if your country were to be taken over by communists, everyone would die hard, right?

>>5188007
>implying my country doesent need a solid cleansing

world revolution cant come fast enough

>>5188004
>Not subscribing to the tenets of his Epic Theatre

>>5187980
plays are pleb tier art and belong to /tv/ rather than /lit/

>>5188031
>actually subscribing to the tenets of his Epic Theatre
pretentious first year pls go

>>5187980
Marat/Sade
Anouilh's Antigone
The American Dream

Albee is probably my favorite. Best American playwright in a 1a, 1b situation with Tennessee. Miller and especially O'Neil are overrated in the American dramatic tradition.

>>5188034
>mocking something you dont even understand

>>5188000
you mean merdre ?

>>5188036
You can just say you've never read his theoretical writings, because his own plays aren't really reflective of the theatrical ideas he developed.

Epic theatre is what the art needs right now(much as it did at his time of writing). The art has stagnated into nothing but stale tragicomedies in a realistic style and the business(not art) of the Broadway musical. Please tell me how the desire for an Epic theatre in a quagmire of shallow issue plays is pretentious.

>>5188034
>this idiot

>>5188092
>You can just say you've never read his theoretical writings
This is more annoying than being called a faggot.
>omg someone doesn't like Brecht
>I better say they haven't read him nor understand him
faggot

>>5188092

i think the main problem with postmodern plays is that they try to hard. every author and director tries to reinvent the wheel with his adaptation , and then we get a version of macbeth which consists of 5 monkies throwing feces around and a homosecual couple having sex in between the audience.

>>5188103
>omg someone likes Brecht
>I better call them pretentious

See it goes both ways. You still haven't elaborated on why Epic theatre is pretentious, but feel free to continue to attack my character rather than Brecht's writings.

>>5188116
>I can't handle banter
pls go

>>5188119
>my ad hominem attack dident work
>DAMAGE CONTROL , MAXIMUM DAMAGE CONTROL

>>5188119
>I can't handle the banter
>This is more annoying than being called a faggot.

Who can't handle the banter?

>>5188133
You just don't understand the abstract implications of my post.

I like Eugenè Ionesco
you just got to admire a man whos best known play is set in a whorehouse.

>>5188109

But Epic theatre doesn't simply mean "postmodern plays". It's more of a reaction to the persistence of the naturalistic style that has lead to the stagnation of the entire form. How many times do the lights have to come up on an apartment, or a living room only for the action to attempt to immerse the audience in it's drama and possibly shove an already determined viewpoint on them? Mamet said something I liked in a book when he was talking negatively about the very popular melodramatic tragicomedy style. He said something to the effect of the plays being unsatisfying as you'll walk out of these issue plays patting yourself on the back and essentially saying "Well then, didn't I know it all along? Blacks, gays, jews, etc. are people too!" The Epic theatre alienates the audience to varying degrees and forces them to confront an issue on their own terms. The audience of Epic theatre is observer and not a implicit spectator.

On adaptations, I would recommend you take a look at the slew of French adaptations of Greek plays and myths done around the 40's. I know you used an extreme example to illustrate your point, but myth(what Shakespeare has largely become to society) and the telling and retelling of myth is incredibly potent and important to the dramatic tradition. There are ideas in Shakespeare and myth so present at the core of humanity that the telling of these narratives is essential for dramatists. That said, there are a lot of shit adaptations, but I believe that largely to come from dramatists who don't know what they are doing, or are looking to make a buck.

>>5188151
But the Bald Soprano takes place in a London home.

>>5188176
>thinking the average /lit/ user understands Ionesco

>>5188182
/lit/'s knowledge of drama always disappoints me. Outside of Shakespeare, there is much left to be desired. All of the friends I graduated with just want to do musicals, improv and sketch comedy. I just want some /lit/erary bros to discuss theatre with.

>>5188166
my point is , theres nothing wrong with telling a good story, even an old one. you do not have to load it up with superflous crap or mystify it up the jinjang. the best Hamlet adaptation ive seen kept all the original dialog , and used 3 wooden boxes as requisites

A. Fredro

>>5188195
Musical theatre is fucking cancer. Even the theatre fags at my Uni haven't heard of Brecht, Ionesco, nor Artaud. They have only read one Oscar Wilde play. They just want to make it to broadway.

>>5188257
>Musical theatre is fucking cancer.
I strongly disagree.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPBEit4opz4

>>5188202
No, of course there's nothing wrong with it, but there's also nothing saying these dramas can't be repurposed in a tasteful manner. There's a line in what one should and should not do in an adaptation and I find it to be a thin and nearly intangible one.

>>5188257
The last girl I dated was an actress who almost exclusively did musical theatre. Great voice, decent dancer, had never heard of Beckett... And it's Broadway that's the problem in that genre, the business is disgusting and it's the musicals themselves that suffer for it.

My favorite plays:

True West - Sam Shepard
The Zoo Story - Edward Albee
Master Harold...and the Boys - Athol Fugard
Richard III - William Shakespeare
A Streetcar Named Desire - Tennessee Williams
Fences - August Wilson
Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett
The Birthday Party - Harold Pinter
Hedda Gabler - Henrik Ibsen
Equus - Peter Shaffer
The Speed of Darkness - Steve Tesich
Lend Me a Tenor - Ken Ludwig
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abriged)

I've read tons of plays, more than any other form of literature. The previous plays are all prominent works, hardly unsung or unrecognized. But I've read a ton of prominent works, and these aforementioned plays had something special that profoundly impacted me, or represented a profound excellence in craft.

Conversely, here are some plays that are highly-esteemed, but I just couldn't give as much of a shit about them, for whatever reason.

Buried Child - Sam Shepard
Seascape - Edward Albee
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - Tennessee Williams
As You Like It - William Shakespeare
A Doll's House - Henrik Ibsen
Dinner with Friends - Donald Margulies
How I Learned to Drive - Paula Vogel
Crimes of the Heart - Beth Henley
Proof - David Auburn
The Heidi Chronicles - Wendy Wasserstein
Rabbit Hole - David Lindsay-Abaire
The Real Thing - Tom Stoppard
Six Degrees of Separation - John Guare
Closer - Patrick Marber
Take Me Out - Richard Greenberg

It's not that these plays lacked interesting component parts, but almost all of them let me down in some way. They did not match my expectations or they just didn't resonate with me the way the plays on the previous list did.

>>5188257
>let me tell you how musical theatre is done

Pretty much anything by Tennessee Williams closed the book on playwriting for a long time. A Cat On A Hot Tin Roof and Streetcar were especially good, and their movie versions were classic.

I really like Angel In America: Millenium Approaches when I read it too.

I am admittedly pleb when it comes to plays those are the ones that stand out to me.

>>5188691
>aforementioned

>>5188710
He's right though. Musical theatre is an entity unto itself, and it's bloated with actors who just don't care at all about artistic merit.

The clash between "serious actors" and musical theatre prigs is endemic to every theatre department. It was true at both schools I attended, and every time I went to the American College Theatre Festival, the musical theatre students seemed typically unwilling to expound on the thematic elements of the plays, unable to digress articulately about their craft, and mostly seemed in it for the attention.

My favorites were those who touted themselves as "triple threats". Invariably, they were amazing singers, and exceptional dancers, but good lord they were fucking awful actors. Painful, cringe inducing, wholly vapid actors. But they could recite lines and stand on stage so they were "triple threats".

I will say though, the few actual triple threats I've worked with, who are truly amazing actors as well, are already doing shows on Broadway. I knew a guy doing Rent off-Broadway playing Tom Collins at 20 years old, and turned down Julliard to do it. He was unbelievable, and very intelligent.

Partage de Midi by Paul Claudel.

Sorry, don't know the english title.

>>5188754
>aforementioned
>denoting a thing or person previously mentioned.

Just because you have some weird chip on your shoulder, doesn't mean the word can never be used. In that context, I needed to make the distinction between the rest of the heralded plays I'd read, and the plays I'd previously mentioned, which rose above for their quality.

It's a word, and it's not even uncommon or stodgy, so I don't know what your deal is, bruh.

John Wilmot - Sodom, or the Quintessence of Debauchery

The Peony Pavillion

Romance of The Western Chamber

Seven Against Thebes

Oedipus Cycle

Aristophanes - Clouds (hilarious)
Aristophanes - Frogs

Cyrano De Bergerac

ITT: shakespear and mostly 20th century stuff, amateurs.

>>5188790
Nope, re-read your comment again -- aforementioned was superfluous

>>5188824
>Says "Oedipus Cycle"
>He really likes Oedipus at Colonus?
>No, no one likes Oedipus at Colonus
>He must want to appear 'in the know'

>>5188842
Yeah, I concede. You're right, it is superfluous.

"Here lies Anon
He never a superfluous word
Go unannounced
Long may he RIP
In peace"

>>5187980
Accidental death of an anarchist

>>5187980
>Playwriter
Hanoch Levin
>Play
Heffetz

>>5188824
>look how much of a special snowflake i am