/play/ - Theater General

[Anonymous No.17373114]

A thread for the discussion of theater, both as written and as performed.

>What are the essential plays?
While this website is usually seen as a meme, it does contain a good list of the most acclaimed plays of all time.
https://www.scaruffi.com/fiction/bestth.html

[Anonymous No.17373188]

I recently read Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire. Although most of the characters were not that interesting, i must say that Blanche DuBois is one of the most intriguing female characters in all the plays I've read or seen, perhaps only behind Euripides's Medea. Even just reading the play and not seeing it performed, I was struck by the depths of her psychology.

Having already seen The Glass Menagerie performed, I will soon, time permitting, read Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. My impression is that those are the "big three" Williams plays, but if anyone has other recommendations from his oeuvre, I would not be unappreciative.

[Anonymous No.17373237]

>>17373114
That's an unusually good list by Scaruffi's standards, but I really doubt he composed it himself. In most cases outside of his music criticism, he only seems to collate other people's lists.
Pic related is one of the rare good charts /lit/ has produced.

[Anonymous No.17373255]

Now, Mr. Scaruffi, why are you billing your own website as "a meme" when it's obvious nobody's ever heard of you or your website before? This is not the way to get clicks.

[Anonymous No.17373266]

>>17373114
Manfred is underrated imo

[Anonymous No.17373268]

>>17373188
I prefer "Night of the Iguana" over "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." The latter is a lot like "The Little Foxes" to me with a gay guy. It's not interesting personally, but who knows you might like it. I think "Iguana" gets a bad rap because it's about a (pearl clutching incoming) paedophile priest. But it is the superior play.

Williams wrote a lot of dogshit, so you have to be careful reading and seeing his B-sides (Sweet Bird of Youth, Suddenly Last Summer, The Rose Tattoo, etc.)

[Anonymous No.17373275]

>>17373237
pt. 2

Regrettably I have been losing interest in going to theater recently. The announcements and news about new productions all seem ridiculously boring to me. I guess I should give up on following the announcements and theater sites altogether and just ask friends for recs and read the reviews instead of the synopses and blurbs.

>>17373255
>when it's obvious nobody's ever heard of you or your website before?
lol

[Anonymous No.17373279]

I think I need to become a theatre director. All of the renditions of Shakespeare I’ve seen were inferior to the image in my mind whilst reading the plays. King Lear especially — I don’t think there exists a good King Lear production.

[Anonymous No.17373284]

>>17373279
>I don’t think there exists a good King Lear production.

Olivier's is probably the best I've seen.

[Anonymous No.17374545]

Where do I start with le prolific man? I can't read Spanish well so I'd prefer something that's been translated.

[Anonymous No.17374725]

>>17373279
Everyone's idea of a play in their head is better than what can be done in reality. Theatre directing is pretty complicated, in my cunt they used to require a person to already have one degree before they let them apply for the directing degree. Now they don't do that, though their standards are pretty rigorous nonetheless, and I know of a girl who managed to get into the programme at 19 yo. She was totally fucked because of that, and gave up studying. You need to be a mature and rounded personality to work on such a level, with so many people on so many planes.

>>17374545
There's an edition of him by OUP, seen here >>17373237

[Anonymous No.17375183]

/play/? More like /gay/

[Anonymous No.17375628]

>>17375183
/read/? more like /sneed/ /seed/ & /feed/