Ten plays
Her's mine in no particular order.
Cyrano de Bergerac - Edmond Rostand
Absolutely beautiful use of language. have seen a couple of productions, acted in one and seen the film and I have a real affection for the sheer lyricism of the piece. Hasn't a graet deal to do with the life of the real man, but it remains one of the classic stories, reused time and time again.
Die Rauber - Schiller
One particularly strange production brought this to my attention. The rather avant-garde Belinner Volksbuhne (sp.) and their wonderfully communist theatre (every seat has a perfect view and great acoustics). I remember less about the play than about the beatifully spartan production and the whole atmospher of the piece.
The Deep Blue Sea - Terrance Rattigan
The first play that really left me open mouthed by the power of theatre, I can't have been more than 12 when I saw it. A beatifully crafted small world of palpable unease. One of the best opening in drama.
Murx den Europaer - Berlinner Volkbuhne
Something i saw at LIFT when i was about 15. A very dadaist improvised piece. Again, little of the actual stroy remains in my mind but vivid images of the production. I remember being slightly bemused by it at the time. Not helped by the out of sync super titles and my poor german.
Figaro gets Divorced - Odon von Horvath
I was introduced to this by acting in it during the UK premier run (world premier of the translation) at the gate theatre. I was orphan number three. I keep coming back to the text. Part three of the operatic figaro trilogy it features Count Almaviva's world overthrown by revolution and the count and Figaro exiled and brought low before a return. A wonderful play about the personal effects of revolution and interesting because it focusses on the older and wealthier sections of society.
Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf - Edward Albee
Another play of domestic discomfort brought to a pinnacle of excellence by Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. The play could make the biggest theatre seem small, close and uncomforatble. A stunnign portrayal of two people clinging on to each other because there is no other alternative. Wether they love each other or not is somewhat of a moot point.
Deathwatch - Jean Genet
A play made memorable by a school production. Brash hard white light and almost no set, audience in the round. Beautiful harsh tension. (Must read script again)
Waiting for Godot -Samuel Beckett
nuff said really
Metamorphoses - Franz Kafka dramatised by Samuel Beckett
Teh only production I've seen is the video of beckett himself doing it. An inspried adaption of the book and possibly better than kafka himself.
We come to number ten and I still have Streetcar named desire, view from a bridge, on the waterfront, 12 angry men, the government Inspector to fit in, but I'm going to go with
In parenthesis - I forget
A radio play about the second world war. The title describes how the soldier life is a life in parenthesis. A true description of the horror and mystery of war. One of the greateest pices of radio theatre ever. (incidently was adapted for the stage by my headmaster at school, where it was performed in a very elaborate production). Shows the real power of radio theatre and is included becayse that's how most theatre comes to me nowadays. (I need to get out more)
― Ed (dali), Tuesday, 20 May 2003 09:50 (twenty-two years ago)
I'll try to think about this when home tonight (when I can remind myself of more), but off the top of my head Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth, Tempest, Othello, Importance Of Being Earnest, Godot, Oedipus Rex, Rhinoceros and Lysistrata would all be on the shortlist. Maybe the Crucible too, maybe some Pinter or Tennessee Williams or Jean Anouilh. Maybe Rosencrantz & Guildenstern too.
― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 20 May 2003 11:38 (twenty-two years ago)
?People were talking about the end of physics. Relativity and quantum looked as if they were going to clean out the whole problem between them. A theory of everything. But they only explained the very big and the very small. The universe, the elementary particles. The ordinary-sized stuff which is our lives, the things people write poetry about?clouds?daffodils?waterfalls?and what happens in a cup of coffee when the cream goes in?these things are full of mystery, as mysterious to us as the heavens were for the Greeks. We?re better at predicting events at the edge of the galaxy or inside the nucleus of an atom than whether it?ll rain on auntie?s garden party three Sundays from now...
It?s the best possible time to be alive, when almost everything you thought you knew is wrong.?
― Alan (Alan), Tuesday, 20 May 2003 11:47 (twenty-two years ago)