One of the best plays I’ve read (aside from A Midsummer Night’s Dream) is called Cosi, a local Australian play about the residents of a long-term mental ward putting on a performance of an opera (cosi fan tutti). I can’t remember the entire plot of the play, but the script was really brilliantly written, the characters were nuanced and subtly described through their dialogue and interactions, and all of the dialogue was at once naturally-flowing, engaged with the other characters, and condensed to make the most impact to emotion and to the plot. It was made into a movie, but I think it works best as a play, or even as a ‘reading’ of a play.

Probably the very first plays I read and loved where Agatha Christie’s adaptations of her novels (or, in some cases, original plays that she later adapted into novels). I had the fortune to see The Mousetrap performed when I was fairly young (thus beginning my lifelong love of Agatha Christie and aversion to the song “Three Blind Mice”) but I’ve greatly enjoyed reading some of her other plays as well. Ten Little Indians in particular was great in play form, especially because I hadn’t read the novel first. It was as suspenseful as any book!

Which two? I’m writing a paper right now on The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire. I really enjoyed both, which was nice, because normally I don’t consider myself a huge fan of plays.

Those same two. Streetcar is an amazing movie, too.

I rented the miniseries version of Angels in America and it drove me crazy. All of that mystical bullshit was unnecessary — the best parts were the ones about the real people, like with Louis trying to live with the fact that his sweetheart is going to die, Mary-Louise Parker’s character struggling with her husband’s sexuality (Patrick Wilson never looked so handsome). That would have been enough for me.

As much as I liked the mystical bits, I agree with you. The interactions of the characters are really what make it for me. (and yeah, Patrick Wilson was pretty yummy in that. And Mary-Louise Parker is nice to look at, too.). Still, I did like the plot with the angel, and Prior’s speech about telling God to piss off. I loved the dialogue in that one as well. In my acting class, one pair is doing the scene where Harper finally asks Joe whether he’s gay, and it’s great.

My “Plays to Read” list:

1. Anything by Pinter
2. Seed-the-Plow, David Mamet
3. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Tennessee Williams
4. Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller
5. The Cherry Orchard, Anton Chekhov

There are probably more, but they aren’t coming to me right now.

Also, how do you feel about Equus?

I hated The Glass Menagerie. I rather liked A Streetcar Named Desire.

No, I haven’t seen the film of Streetcar. But the pages drip with sexual tension, which, as a 16 year old (when I read it) I could understand. Menagerie was too depressing and pointless for me.

EDIT: Hey, other plays I recognize! I really, really hated Equus. Again, too depressing and pointless. And pretentious. I don’t mind a play being depressing for a reason, if the characters learn something/grow. But… gah. I didn’t like Master Harold and the Boys, but I don’t remember why. Oh, and I read Death of a Salesman ages ago. I did not like it. Same reason as Equus.

We just read/watched Streetcar in my theater class, conveniently enough. It was pretty good. Not exactly the happiest of stories and happiest of endings, but good nonetheless. The movie really is pretty fantastic, it was done very well. (we watched the original movie, by the way, with Marlon Brando and Vivian Leigh, so I can’t really comment on other film adaptations of it)

In my high school AP Lit class, we read Antigone (as well as Oedipus Rex and Oedipus at Colonus) and… meh. I can see why it’s such a well-known play (same for Oedipus Rex) but they’re all just so depressing. Oedipus at Colonus was probably the most cheerful of the lot (because Oedipus sort of gets a semi-happy ending), but I didn’t like it overall as much as the other too. Anyway, I still like them as good writing, but not so much as entertainment. The other Greek play I’ve read is Lysistrata, which is, well, a whole lot more entertaining. 2000 years later, and that play is still hilarious.

I don’t know, actually. I was at my cousin’s house and was immensely bored, and the nearest book to hand was her English textbook for school. So I started flipping through it, because sometimes there’s some interesting stuff in there, and came across Lysistrata. So whatever translation is used in high school textbooks!

I do recall the Spartans being kind of annoying. But it seems like that was probably a little bit intentional, right? With the Spartans being the backwards, unadvanced types as compared to the clearly much more brilliant Athenians?