Books Read in August

My actual book reading was fairly limited in August.  I finished up Fielding's wonderful 'Tom Jones' and I'll write about that sometime soon.  Since then, I've wandered a bit through short stories and other things.  The biggest concentrated reading that I've done has been non-Shakespearean plays.  I've got an old text book called 'Masters of Modern Drama' and I've been reading through it.  In this past month, I've read several plays that are new to me:

• Ibsen's 'Peer Gynt' - Loved this.  Peer Gynt is a larger than life story-teller/rogue from a small town in Norway.  He gets in serious trouble, is nearly married to a troll princess and then flees to the larger world.  Near the end of his life, he works hard to cheat death and goes through a journey of self-discovery.  Great stuff.
• Ibesen's 'Ghosts' - A very realistic play about how societal rules require people to sin in the name of good and do good things in violation of law.  This is much more like the Ibsen that I've read in the past.  Disturbing and thought provoking.
• Strindberg's 'Miss Julie' - Another play about societal bonds and the havoc they can wreak.  I thought it was only ok, but I can see how a good performance of this could be devastating.
• Strindberg's 'The Ghost Sonata' - A dreamlike play, again with the hint of death and a strong sense of people having far too much control over others. 
• Maeterlinck's 'The Intruder' - This is a short, atmospheric play that could be terrifying.  It all takes place in one room as a family gathers with a blind grandfather.  They all sense...something...come into the house.  They fear for death.  Shivers!
• von Hofmannshtal's 'Death and the Fool' - Another short play about death, but this one all in verse.  I'll have to take another run at this when I'm in the right place, but as it is, I think I rushed through and missed out.
• Synge's 'Playboy of the Western World' - An interesting Irish drama about how glamour and infamy can change people.  Apparently it caused riots when it first appeared on stage.
• Yeat's 'At the Hawk Well' - A small, very arty play by William Butler Yeats, better known as a poet.  This is the type of play that people think of when they think of artists making art only for artists.
• Cocteau's 'Orpheus' - Another arty play, but I loved this one.  A retelling of Orpheus with some modern twists and some stage trickery.  Would love to see it on the stage.

This is a fine text book and I'll probably keep working through it over time. 

Sartre, Wilder and Death

Review of Wilder's 'Our Town' is here.

Review of Sartre's 'No Exit' is here.

I pulled both of these plays off the shelf almost at random.  I'd read 'Our Town' some twenty years ago but hadn't read 'No Exit' before.  Both are striking in different ways but they share a similarity in how they deal with being dead.  The third act of 'Our Town' takes place in a cemetery and is (mostly) peopled by the dead talking about the living.  'No Exit' features three dead people trapped in a room together making each other miserable.  But both are very, very different.

How the dead interact with life - In 'Our Town', the newly dead are seated in the spots of their graves.  They are calm and distant.  When the living come, they are aware but not excited.  Their survivors aren't very important any more, nor is the world that is still going on.  In fact, the main lesson learned is that the living don't appreciate just how good being alive is.  This is presented without envy.  If anything, it's presented with pity and remorse.
In 'No Exit', the newly dead still have some connection to the lives they've led but only until they are forgotten.  As soon as that happens, all connection is severed and they are cut off from that experience.  When that happens, it is somewhat tragic as then they are truly stuck in a room.  There is nothing calm about their demeanor.

How the dead interact with each other - 'No Exit' famously ends with the line that 'hell is other people'.  The three are trapped with each other for only about an hour in the play and they make each other miserable.  They find faults and they pick at them.  They will quickly drive each other crazy.  Forever.
Meanwhile, in 'Our Town', the residents of Grover's Corners can idly sit together without any problems.  They have the attitude of people sitting and visiting after church, which no doubt they did many, many times while still alive.  No one seems all that bothered, and this includes a man who was a drunkard that hung himself.

What they do - Wilder's cast can sit forever without problems.  In fact, the only thing that I can imagine they'd miss is having something to do.  If I was staging this, the women would be knitting while the men were endlessly whittling or something. 
The cast of 'No Exit' fret, but it's harder to imagine what they'd be doing to keep busy.  The women are veterans of countless dinner parties but these clearly aren't friendly affairs.  Their knives are ever at hand.  The man is a newspaper man, who lives by thinking and writing.  He'd be just as bored with knitting and if you offered him a chance to whittle, he'd try to kill himself with a knife.

Their intended audience - It's no exaggeration to say that 'Our Town' is very American, while 'No Exit' is very French.  It's hard to think of a switch between them.  'Our Town' wouldn't play to raves in Paris and 'No Exit' would not be a terribly popular high school play.  (Well, maybe with the students, but not with their parents.)  They both contain philosophical truths, but one invites after-play discussion over wine and cigarettes, the other over a burger and malt.  (Though come to think of it, the two plays would make a fascinating double feature or mash-up!)

These are both fine, fine plays.

No Exit - Sartre (69)

This is about another play from the 100 Drama series.

'No Exit' opens with a man being shown a simple room by a valet.  The valet explains that there is no need for food or sleep anymore.  The room will be closed and the only means of communicating will be with a bell that is capricious in its operation.  The man asks about the upcoming torture but there are no instruments of torture or a torturer in evidence.  We come to understand that the man is dead and he believes he is in hell.
Two women join him and they each expect torture.  They talk and discover that none of them knew each other while they were living.  Each of them feels strong guilt about actions when they were alive.  All of them suspect that one of the others is a spy of some sort and the torture will soon begin.  They distrust each other.
But they also want comfort and love.  They want reassurances that they weren't awful people while alive.  They want to know that they are still lovable and desirable.  However, they can't seem to find some easy state that allows the others to be happy.  Slowly it dawns on them that they will torture each other.  The play observes that 'hell is other people'.

I'd never read this before.  The message is simple and powerful: we make our own lives, and the lives of people around us, miserable.  Sartre doesn't offer any relief from this and perhaps he doesn't believe there is any.  While reading it, I couldn't help but think that it wouldn't be too hard for me to pick people that would make eternity hell for me.  (Certain former co-workers came to mind.)  In fact, if I was trapped in a room with two other people for all time, I don't know if there would be any possible two that would keep it from becoming hell.  What an exquisite torture Sartre has thought of.

The play is a bit of a gimmick but I don't think that is much of a strike against it.  The illusion that you must accept is a solid one and the rules are easy to grasp.  Staging this play would be relatively easy and the cast is only four people.  I don't have a feel for the popularity of the show.  It really doesn't scream for a wide audience.  I bet it made an impact though.
'No Exit' is a play that I will think about for some time.  That's what it aimed for and it struck that target hard.

Our Town - Thornton Wilder (71)

Since I'm not doing much of the actual reading for the Great Books list, I thought I'd at least dip my toe back into the 'Drama 100' list and read some plays.  To recap for those joining the broadcast midstream, there is a book called 'Drama 100' which ranks the best stage plays 1-100.  Last year I thought that I'd be able to get through about one a month and that would serve as a supplement to the Great Books list.  That schedule proved impossible to hit so I thought I would do some here and there. 
Next month, the Great Books list gives us 'Moby Dick' and that will put me back on track (hopefully for the next five plus years).

Thornton Wilder's 'Our Town' is unique.  It's called the 'most performed play in America' so you may be familiar with it already, but just in case you aren't, here is what you need to know.  The play is performed with a fairly bare stage.  There is no set.  Only furniture that is moved around to suggest various places.  The story is narrated by the Stage Manager who constantly breaks the fourth wall and talks directly to the audience. 
The setting is a small New England town in the early part of the 20th century.  It's a good town and most (but notably not all) are very happy with it.  The first act introduces us to the town and some of its people, most notably the couple we will follow throughout Emily and George.  They are about the same age and have literally grown up next door to each other.
The second act is titled 'Love and Marriage' and it shows the their wedding day.  We get an extended flashback to the time when they first realized they were in love.  The entire thing is sweet and authentic.  The third act deals with death and has a poignant message about living each day.  The dead can't help but wonder how the living fail to see each day as a miracle.  The message is interesting and well told. 
It's not hard to see why the play is widely done.  The staging is simple and inexpensive.  The cast can be fairly small or fairly large, depending on what size you want.  The story is well done and has moments of profundity.  Their are a few roles that budding actors can really get their teeth into.  This is a staple of American high schools.

I studied this play while I was in high school and haven't read it since.  Back then I read it (at least once) and saw it performed both professionally and by friends in school.  I remembered liking it and that's still true.  My enduring memory was of the bare set.  I didn't remember much of the story at all.  I was pleasantly surprised, especially with the depth of the third act.  This is a fine, fine play.

Le Cid - Corneille (91)

Reading 'Le Cid' is somewhat like seeing a version of 'Romeo and Juliet' with a different focus.  Oh, the style is more straight poetry and the events are certainly different, but the overall focus of a conflict between love and family and honor is the same.  The major plot points in 'Le Cid' are:

• We start with our heroine, Chimene, waiting for the arrival of her true love, Rodrigue, also known as le Cid, or 'the lord'.  He gained this nickname on the battlefield.  While waiting, her father and his father get into a fight.  Rodrigue's father is struck and he calls on his son to avenge him.  
• Le Cid is stuck between honor and his love for Chimene.  He chooses the honorable avenue and challenges Chimene's father to a duel.  Le Cid is victorious and the father dies.  
• Now Chimene is in a bind.  Does she side with her love or does she ask the king for help to avenge her father?  She also chooses honor and asks the king for Le Cid's death.
• Chimene and Rodrigue meet.  They both love each other but they feel compelled to go forward.  Rodrigue offers to kill himself but Chimene won't let him.  She must still pursue honorable justice though and press on with the king.
• The Moors attack the city.  Le Cid goes to defend the city and covers himself with glory. 
• Chimene realizes that the king can't order him to be executed so she asks that he be tried by single combat and offers to marry anyone that can kill him.  (And you thought your love life was complicated!)  
• The king can see that the two love each other.  He changes the conditions of the fight so that she must marry the victor.  
• Chimene and Rodrigue meet again.  He tells her that he won't defend himself in this duel and she urges him to do so.  She wants him to win, but, for the sake of honor, he must go through with the fight.
• Le Cid wins the fight but spares the other fighter, Don Sanche.  Don Sanche goes to Chimene and she believes that he has killed Rodrigue.  This is straightened out.
• The lovers aren't sure that they should wed but the king gives them his blessing.  They acted as nobly as they could and they should be married.
• Finis.

I mentioned 'Romeo and Juliet' up top, but what kept coming to my mind was 'West Side Story'.  Maria has lost her brother to Tony but she still loves him.  Can't stop loving him.  (In fairness, if she had more time to come to grips with what had happened, the story might have been different.)  Here we see a similar dynamic, but with a father instead of a brother.  And, in much the same way as Maria, Chimene has almost no time to absorb any of this.  (Did I mention that all of the above plot points happen over the course of a single day?)

I liked 'Le Cid' and it's worthy enough to be on a list like this on its own merit.  I think though, that it was given further historical weight because it brought about a large argument in France when it came out in 1637.  Enemies of Corneille argued that the play was improper for a number of reasons.  Corneille had based all of the action in one single day so that he could satisfy the dramatic rules laid down by Aristotle.  His critics argues that this day was overloaded.  (They have a point.)  They also said that it was highly improper for a daughter to happily wed the man who killed her father.  Corneille pointed out that his story was rooted in historical fact but they answered that 'There are monstrous truths that must be repressed for the good of society'.  

I don't remember reading that in Aristotle.  

Next up is #90, 'The Weavers' by Gerhart Hauptmann.  The play was published in 1897, so not quite 20th century but close to it.

The Rover - Behn (92)

Before I talk about 'The Rover', let me speak a little about the author, Aphra Behn.  I'd never heard of her before, and perhaps you haven't either.  (Here is her Wikipedia page, if you want more depth.)  Aphra Behn was (probably) the first woman to earn her living by writing.  Or at least the first European one.  She published 'The Rover' in 1677, some sixty years after Shakespeare died.  Her drama is very bawdy and, from what I can tell, she is little produced nowadays.
Which is a damn shame because 'The Rover' is a fun, fun play.  It focuses on a household of women in Naples.  The women are of different status levels and experience in love.  They have certain romantic and commercial entanglements.  And in fact, the romance and the commerce are quite tangled together.  They meet a band of English cavaliers and, well, the tangling continues more and more.  It's a comedy, but the topics covered have a tinge of seriousness. 
The women are smart and sophisticated.  They understand that vows of true love come with a dear price.  When one of the women, Helena, is talking to one of the cavaliers before he goes to a duel, she asks:

And if you do not lose, what shall I get? A cradle full of noise and mischief and a pack of repentance for my back?

What a great line!  The dialogue is full of wonderful lines.  It's a shame that this isn't better known.  I could easily see a period piece movie done from this script.  It would do as well as a good Shakespearean adaptation.  Anyway, if you get a chance, do see it.

Next up: 'Le Cid' by Pierre Corneille, also from the 17th century.  I've been somewhat delayed from writing so I've already read ahead.  Expect this review to go up next week.  

Accidental Death of an Anarchist - Fo (96)

(Finally, right?  It took a while to track this down, but, oh, what a joy it was to read!)

The prologue to the play helpfully tells us about a bit of Italian history from 1969.  A bomb exploded at an Agricultural Bank in Milan, killing sixteen people.  The police questioned an anarchist and after some time he went out of a fourth story window.  The official story is that he jumped.  This story takes place not long after.
It opens on a man simply called The Fool, who is being questioned by an inspector.  The Fool a) has a long habit of impersonating people and b) has spent time in several mental institutions.  He is incredibly fast talking and before long the inspector chases him out.  The Fool sneaks back in and takes a phone call in which he learns that a judge is coming to speak to the officers about the death of the anarchist.  He seizes this chance to make mischief and decides to impersonate the judge.
The Fool then speaks to the Chief of police and some officers.  He convinces them that he will try and improve their rather thin story but he has to learn the true facts.  Bit by bit we learn what really happened.  After some time a young lady journalist comes in.  The Fool adopts a different disguise and continues to injure the situation for the police.  So on and so on until the explosive ending.

I loved this play.  It was like a cross between a dirty cop show and a Marx Brothers movie.  In fact, the Fool must have some Groucho, Chico and Harpo in his DNA.  This role would be an absolute joy to play.
The politics of the play ground it very much in the Italy of its time.  It involves police corruption and an attempt to scapegoat leftists, anarchists and communists for violent acts.  I know next to nothing about the history of that period but the play isn't shy with its accusations.
The script I was reading was translated in the 80's and had been updated for an American audience.  This meant sneers about the 'actor in the White House' that really felt tacked on to the story.  This is something of a quibble.  I hope that if the play is reproduced in some kind of classic story that they won't try to keep 'updating' it.  As I said, that's a quibble.  I really did love it.

Next up, we get back on schedule with #92, 'The Rover' by Aphra Behn.

Awake and Sing! - Odets (93)

'Awake and Sing!' is very much a play of the Great Depression.  The play is set in a New York home, over-crowded with people all looking for a break.  Life is bleak and unhappy for all.  The home belongs to the Bergers, an overworked mother, a dream stricken father, an ambitious son, a wise grandfather and a daughter, Hennie, who has accidentally gotten herself in a family way.  The son, Ralph, is something of the hero of the play.  He wants a chance to succeed but he can't figure out how to do it.  Other characters also board at the house, all of them interesting.  The characters are one of the strong points of the play.
All of them are unhappy and their unhappiness is made worse by the regular visits of a rich uncle who subtlety rubs his wealth in their faces.  He can't understand why they can't make it.  What's worse, they don't understand it either.  The grandfather, Jacob, wistfully hopes that the fine things happening in Russia will provide some clues on how to get society on track. 
The climax comes when Jacob sacrifices himself to get some insurance money into Ralph's hands.  If Ralph takes it, he can become self sufficient.  But it may cost him his family as there is plenty of resentment from his mother about this kind of nest egg.  She worked hard and sacrificed her life for her family and thinks it only just that a windfall should come to her as well.  In the end, Ralph decides that the only way he can make himself an honorable life is to let the money go and confidently make his own fortune in life.

It's an interesting play and I can easily see why people would go to see it.  It's thought provoking and well written.  It debuted in 1935 at a time when society really did seem broken and people were looking for answers.  I'd recommend it.
However, I can't just casually dismiss the Marxism of the piece, especially the fond words for the communists in Russia.  If I were to find a newspaper article or play from 1935 that praised the Nazis in Germany, I could understand that the writer didn't know what horrors were ahead.  Fair enough.  In retrospect though, we'd assess a very heavy penalty to that piece.  Same rules should apply here.  A couple of years before this play was being put on in America, the Soviets starved about 4 million people in Ukraine.  We should hardly be wistful about such an awful government.

Next up, we take a step back to 'Accidental Death of an Anarchist' by Daniel Fo.  The play is from 1970 and I know virtually nothing about it yet.  It's #96 on the list and this will finally fill that gap.

The Brothers - Terence (94)

I wrote a bit about Terence here.  To recap, he was one of the more important Roman playwrights.  He was very widely read amongst the learned peoples at least up until the early 1800s.  And he has mostly dropped off of contemporary radars for whatever reason. 

'The Brothers' is about two sets of brothers.  The first set is an older, middle aged, set.  One works on the farm while the other is in the city.  One is married with two sons while the other is a bachelor.  The married brother is letting the unmarried one raise one of his sons.  (And no, I can't picture that either, but different times, different customs.)
The two have different styles of raising children and that's where the most interesting part of the play comes up.  The farm brother is very hands on in guiding and raising while the city one says:

'Tis this then is the duty of a father,
To make a son embrace a life of virtue,
Rather from choice than terror or constraint.
Here lies the might difference between
A father and a master. He who knows not
How to do this, let him confess he knows not
How to rule children.

This sets up the plot as the brothers end up in a very sit-com type plot of mistaken intentions and money paid for wives.  But, no fear, eventually the mistakes are cleared up and weddings abound.  The 'loose-ruled' brother speaks again:

     In these youths I see
The marks of virtue; and, I trust, they'll prove
Such as we wish them. They have sense, I know;
Attention; in its season, liberal shame;
And fondness for each other; all sure signs
Of an ingenuous mind and noble nature:
And though they stray, you may at any time
Reclaim them.

 This is a reasonable set of goals for a parent to set for their children.  I'd be very happy if my three qualify in all respects. 

Did I like it?  It's an ok play, but nothing special.  This is probably one where there is some large benefit from actually seeing a production rather than reading it cold.  (This is true of a very many ancient play.)  I would mostly recommend Terence for historical value, in much the same way that I would Lope de Vega.  In other words, if you find one of his plays in an anthology or elsewhere, go ahead and read it.  It won't be life changing but it will let you better understand just how the entire Dramatic experience got from there to here.

Next up is #93, 'Awake and Sing' by Clifford Odets.  I have now gotten my mitts on a copy of #96, 'Accidental Death of an Anarchist' but I've already started the Odets so I'll come back for it.  My (very loose) plan is to try and power ahead until I get to the point where this is one play per month.  Hopefully by this fall.  My hope is that will make it easier for others to join in.

Terence

In my last post, I mentioned that the next play is by Terence, a playwright of ancient Rome.  I should have mentioned that you can read 'The Brothers' online for free here.  If you have some time, I recommend it but I'm not going to pretend that it's life changing.  Terence was one of the most important Roman authors.  Not so much, in his time, but in the time since. 
From wikipedia:

Terence's plays were a standard part of the Latin curriculum of the neo-classical period. US President John Adams once wrote to his son, "Terence is remarkable, for good morals, good taste, and good Latin...His language has simplicity and an elegance that make him proper to be accurately studied as a model."^[11]
Two of the earliest English comedies, Ralph Roister Doister and Gammer Gurton's Needle, are thought to parody Terence's plays.
Due to his cognomen Afer, Terence has long been identified with Africa and heralded as the first poet of the African diaspora by generations of writers, including Juan Latino, Phyllis Wheatley, Alexandre Dumas, Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou.
American playwright Thornton Wilder based his novel The Woman of Andros on Terence's Andria.

 So he was a heavy and heavily influential.  The thing is, before this project, I'd never heard of him.  Ok, so there are plenty of playwrights that I've never heard of.  I'm not pretending that I'm some kind of subject expert or anything.  But Jean Genet, the author of 'The Balcony' that I just reviewed, published about 60 years ago.  It's very possible that a similar list compiled in 2100 AD wouldn't have him on it.  The play is relatively young and its star could fade quickly.  Not so with Terence.  His work has been around for more than two thousand years.  His 'classic' status is unquestionable.

Still.  It has been very enlightening to read a selection of lauded plays interspersed with some of the works of Shakespeare.  Terence was without a doubt a great influence.  His plot in 'The Brothers' is interesting and his characters are more like real people than, say, Euripides or Aeschylus.  But as classic as he (and the others) are, they don't really exceed the work done today.  Yes, modern authors are taking their plots and the tricks that these great men taught them.  Yes, they should be honored for being there first.  I'm not trying to devalue them one little jot.
But you know what?  Shakespeare is different.  If you asked 100 writers today to write a 'lost' play by Terence, you could get some reasonably close facsimiles, maybe some improvements.  If you tried the same thing with Shakespeare, you'd get 100 failures.  Yes, he was playing a somewhat different game than a modern like Stoppard, but no one can outplay him at that game. 
We can make stories that are loosely based on Hamlet, Romeo & Juliet or Macbeth, but we can't improve on them.  No one can make the characters more interesting.  No one can bend the language quite so sweetly.  No one else can take such a simple idea and make it absolutely flower into something so brilliant. 
People often glibly say that Shakespeare is the top playwright.  I've long taken that at face value.  Now that I have some more experience under my belt, I can only nod my head vigorously.  Yeah, he really is.

The Balcony - Genet (95)

This isn't a play for the faint of heart.  The Balcony is a rather involved brothel, placed in a city that has a rebellion on the outskirts.  The clients have elaborate fantasies that mostly involve themselves in a place of power.  For instance, the opening scene is of a man dressed as a bishop dealing with a penitent woman.  They are working on getting the image right so that they can project the kind of power that they lack in real life.
The contrast is provided by the actual Chief of Police, who wields power but isn't appreciated enough.  He comes to the brothel wondering if any of the clients are dressing up as him.   He's crushed to find out that no one is.  He hopes to achieve enough glory that he can justify the enormous tomb that he has planned for himself.
Yet another counterpoint is provided by a brothel worker named Chantel.  She is adopted by the revolution as an image of their virtues and designs.  She thinks that her training will make her ready for such a role (and her head is turned a bit by the attention). Whereas the men are tawdry, she is sublime in her imagery, but she's still a projection, an image, rather than a source of actual power.

The stage directions call for what sounds like an elaborate set up involving mirrors and sectional costumes.  The play debuted in 1956, in London, and I imagine it was something of a shock then.  Let me just say that this isn't anything that will be selected for a high school production . . .
I liked 'The Balcony' but this isn't really my style.  It's raw and unreal.  I found myself comparing it to 'Macbeth'.  Both plays are about power, but it's easy to imagine a real life Macbeth and (somewhat less so) a Lady Macbeth.  This isn't true of the players in the Balcony which are blown up representations, rather than actual people.  Well, to each their own.

Next up is #94, 'The Brother's by Terence, a playwright of ancient Rome. 

The Hostage, Behan - 97

This is a most Irish play.  The setting is 1958 and there is enormous tension between the Irish and the Brits.  The play takes place in a brothel that is run by a man named Pat, who fought the British in his youth but now has a bad leg and a cynical approach.  (Well, maybe that's not right.  He thinks of the cause as hopeless, but obviously is sympathetic to it.)  There is a somber note to the proceedings.  A young Irish boy of 18, is set to be executed the next morning.  He's an IRA member and was caught shooting at a policeman.
The owner of the building is a man called Monsewer.  He's Anglo/Irish but in full sympathy to the Irish cause.  A group of the IRA is going to kidnap a British soldier and bring him to the brothel.  If the Irish boy is killed, the soldier will be too.  None of the regulars at the brothel are to know of this, but of course they find out when the soldier is brought in.
The soldier is a young lad named Leslie and he really doesn't understand what's happening.  He feels badly for the Irish civilians that were harmed but he didn't do it.  As for the boy that will be executed, well, you can't go shooting at policeman, can you?  He personally hasn't hurt anyone so why should they hurt him?  And then he finds out that they really do intend to shoot him and (of course) he objects to that.
The situation of a captured soldier is absurd, but then, the overall situation is absurd for 'civilians' in a constant asymmetrical war-zone.  Behan captures that absurdity well.  You feel for these poor people even though the actions are hard to sympathize with.  Frankly, I can't imagine what living that kind of life must be like.  From a moral standpoint, I'm just going to stand back and keep my opinions to myself.
The play itself looks like it must be quite something to see.  The dialogue is crackling, the characters are all interesting and the over-arching questions are thorny.  I didn't mention this, but there are quite a few musical numbers too.  It's hard for me to picture how that fits in.  One of the limits of trying to get a feel for a play simply by reading the script instead of watching it performed.

Next up should be 'The Accidental Death of an Anarchist' by Dario Fo but I can't find it anywhere.  So I'm going to abuse my authority as the person running this project and skip ahead to #95, 'The Balcony' by Jean Genet.  Don't worry, I'll come back for Fo.  There may be more skipping around this year, but once I settle in to the one a month routine in January, I'll be certain to stay on track.

The Heidi Chronicles - 98

I really was delighted by the 'Heidi Chronicles' by Wendy Wasserstein.  The play chooses an interesting device to tell its story.  We see Heidi Holland in a number of scenes from her life, as she grows and learns things.  Along with her are three friends, Susan, Peter and Scoop.  Each of them changes and varies in cynicism and optimism as time goes by.
Heidi goes from a wallflower to a social activist to a feminist to writer about women and art to (finally) a mother of an adopted girl.  Apparently that last bit was controversial among feminists who resented the idea that a woman could need a child to feel complete.  That wasn't my reading but I'm a) not a feminist and b) a man, so I'm sure that they won't care about my opinion on this.
The writing throughout is clear and thoughtful.  These feel like real people in the way we seem them over twenty-some years of time.  Its also humorous and fun.  I'd enjoy seeing it on the stage.  I can only imagine that it would be effective, especially for women of a similar age to Heidi Holland.  The plays suggests that there is a struggle out there for women to figure out exactly how to live their lives.  Feminism and the various women's rights movements of the 60's and 70's didn't really solve that struggle.  It opened doors certainly but the eternal questions of how to live still need to be solved.  (This remains true for men too.)  I'm guessing that those question will still be unsolved a thousand years from now and beyond.
I very much enjoyed this and was glad that I was introduced to it.

Next up is 'The Hostage' by Brendan Behan.  I haven't found it yet to read but I believe there is a full staging of it online to watch.  Part of me feels that this would be cheating, but that's probably silly.  Plays were meant to be watched, not read, right?

The King, the Greatest Alcalde - 99

I did find a copy and it turned out to be easier than I expected.  Thank God for used bookstores, right?  It was in an anthology of world drama.

Probably the most important thing to know about this play is the author, Lope de Vega (biographical link).  He was the father of Spanish theater and a man of prodigious work.  He is thought to have written some 1800 plays and around 3000 sonnets.  Cervantes called him a 'monster of nature' for his ability to write such sheer quantity.  He also changed the nature of theater in Spain (and Europe) by breaking from Aristotle's strict rules.  (Or so it is said.  He was roughly contemporary to Shakespeare and you really can't accuse Shakespeare of following the rules here either.  But I'm not a drama historian and might be missing something here.)  Is he any good?  I'll get back to that.
This play, 'The King, the Greatest Judge' (or Magistrate or Alcalde, translations vary) is chosen as a representative.  From what I can tell, Lope de Vega has not enjoyed a huge amount of translation into English or been seen much on American stages.  Which is a shame, as I can easily see putting on this and similar plays.  The historical value alone is high enough to create interest.
So what happens?  In the play, a peasant by the name of Sancho has fallen in love with a fair maiden named Elvira.  He asks her father for her hand and her father tells him that he must ask for their lord and patron to bless the marriage.  Sancho asks for and receives the blessing and his patron, Don Tello, decides to attend the wedding.  And then the problem happens.  Don Tello falls in love with Elvira and contrives to kidnap her.
Sancho goes to the king and begs for help.  The king writes a letter ordering Don Tello to give her back but Don Tello refuses to do so.  So Sancho goes back to the king.  Meanwhile, Don Tello is becoming more and more frustrated, because Elvira won't give up her charms.  He schemes to make her do so but she resists.
The king returns with Sancho and discovers that Don Tello has finally just taken her.  He orders a priest and a hangman.  Don Tello will marry her to restore her honor and then he'll be executed.  Elvira and Sancho will then be together and wealthy.
The plot is on the simple side.  The characters are interesting, but a bit cartoonish.  My favorite is a swineherd named Pelayo who travels with Sancho.  He misunderstands everything in a most amusing fashion.  It's the part that I would want to play.  In short, I enjoyed it, but you'd have to do some hard work to make me think of it as one of the 100 best plays of all time.  If you happen to run across it somewhere, it's definitely worth a read.

Next up: 'The Heidi Chronicles' by Wendy Wasserstein.

100 Plays Update

I'm still mentally trying to figure out the best process for this.  I'm going to try very hard to get to a place where I can reliably do one play per month.  That means that I need to have 84 plays left at the end of this year.  The first one is done (Peter Pan is here), so there are 15 left to get to in the next seven or so months.  That's not difficult but it may be tough for other people to follow along.  Or, to put it more simply, I'm not sure what the schedule is going to look like.  I may push to do one a week for some time, or if the other reading is intense, there might be some time between reviews.  That's not good for others.
The best way to fix that is to simply put up the first 16 plays and let people pick their way through.  If we match up, then good.  If not, so be it.  I'm going to try to stay in order, but I don't care if others choose to jump around.  Ready?

100. Peter Pan - JM Barrie
99. The King's the Best Magistrate - Lope de Vega
98. The Heidi Chronicles - Wendy Wasserstein
97. The Hostage - Brendan Behan
96. Accidental Death of an Anarchist - Dario Fo
95. The Balcony - Jean Genet
94. The Brothers - Terence
93. Awake and Sing! - Clifford Odets
92. The Rover - Aphra Behn
91. Le Cid - Pierre Corneille
90. The Weavers - Gerhard Hauptmann
89. The Visit - Friedrich Durrenmatt
88. The Dybbuk - S. Ansky
87. Fences - August Wilson
86. The Little Foxes - Lillian Hellman
85. The Other Shore - Gao Xingjian

The rest you will have to wait for.  (Or you could read the book!)  And when 2015 arrives, this will all be settled down and normalized.  I promise.

Peter Pan - 100

This is the first play in the 100 plays project.  If you want to understand it, or need a refresher, here is the explanation. I'll be trying to buzz through a number of these for the rest of the year and then (hopefully!) settle into one per month.

I've seen various versions of Peter Pan many times but until now, I've never read the actual play.  The spirit of Peter Pan is fairly well represented elsewhere but there are elements to the stage version that you don't really get if you've only seen the Disney take.  For one, JM Barrie is absolutely crazy with stage directions.  Every scene is opened with a dense paragraph of notes.  Most (if not every) character is given some kind of insight into their past.  Many of those insights would be completely lost on any audience.  For instance, here is how the pirate crew is introduced:

The pirates appear upon the frozen river dragging a raft, on which reclines among cushions that dark and fearful man, CAPTAIN JAS. HOOK. A more villainous-looking brotherhood of men never hung in a row on Execution dock. Here, his great arms bare, pieces of eight in his ears as ornaments, is the handsome CECCO, who cut his name on the back of the governor of the prison at Gao. Heavier in the pull is the gigantic black who has had many names since the first one terrified dusky children on the banks of the Guidjo-mo. BILL JUKES comes next, every inch of him tattooed, the same JUKES who got six dozen on the Walrus from FLINT. Following these are COOKSON, said to be BLACK. MURPHY'S brother (but this was never proved); and GENTLEMAN STARKEY, once an usher in a school; and SKYLIGHTS (Morgan's Skylights); and NOODLER, whose hands are fixed on backwards; and the spectacled boatswain, SMEE, the only Nonconformist in HOOK'S crew; and other ruffians long known and feared on the Spanish main.

Good luck showing those things off!  As the reader, there is a wealth here.  This is a highly enjoyable play to sit and read.  The other element that struck me was just how hard this must be to stage.  There are flying actors, and I believe that this was the first play to do that.  But the other technical things are simply crazy.  The third act takes place in a lagoon.  Most of the action takes place with people going on and off of a rock in the water.  Again, good luck with that!
And I should mention that this is a play that couldn't possibly pass muster today because of its treatment of Native Americans.  This is virtually the only place that I've read about 'redskins' outside of football.  Of course, the story came from JM Barrie's imagination in the mid 19th century, and I'm sure that this treatment was quite in line with its day.  My suggestion is to try and get past that and enjoy the book with the understanding that times have changed.
This is an historic play.  One of the first that was created primarily for children.  Certainly the first of such to become wildly popular.  And that popularity is deserved.  We often face a tension between becoming more grown up and keeping our childlike wonder.  Peter Pan is a great emblem of that struggle.  We can easily understand the desire to stay in our childlike lives (at least I can!).  But we also see that the boys absolutely must move on.  Peter Pan, himself, is not a sympathetic character.  He's cruel and cold and callous.  We might want to remain young, but not at that price!

Next up: 'The King's the Best Magistrate' by Lope de Vega.  (Well maybe.  I'm having a devil of a time finding any kind of English translation.)

100 Plays

A couple of years ago I picked up a book at a garage sale called 'The 100 Best Poems of All Time' (finally found it on Amazon!).  For the past couple of years I've been blogging my way through it, about one poem a week.  You can read the full series by clicking on the 'Poetry' link at the bottom of this post.
I've fully enjoyed this side project.  Part of the reason that I decided to the Great Books reading list is to become more well read.  The poetry book has helped with that.  More importantly, it has introduced me to some wonderful, wonderful poems that I'd never read before.  This one might be my favorite.  Unfortunately, I've only got twenty-some poems left.  I'll finish up before the end of the year.  I thought about simply being done and concentrating on the Great Books but I've enjoyed have a side project to help pace my way through. 
Then I remembered that a couple of years ago, when I was trying to figure out if there was some consensus that Hamlet was the greatest stage play ever, I stumbled across a book that tried to rank the 100 greatest plays of all time.  Well.  I know theater better than I do poetry but my knowledge of it isn't nearly so complete that I couldn't stand to expand it.  (This is an understatement!)  Long story short, I bought it and I'm going to work my way through it.
There are some issues, big and small, to figure out.

• A full play is much, much longer than a poem.  I can read and blog about a poem after work on a Sunday night but this simply isn't true about a full stage play.  Instead of one a week, it will be one a month.
• Let's see, seven years at one play a month comes to . . . 84 plays.  Which leaves me 16 short.  Either the drama project will go past the Great Books or I need to do it in a shorter period of time.  Skip the ones that are covered by the Great Books?  Lop off the last 16?  After some consideration, I decided that I'd simply look for months were I could double up and get the whole thing done on time.  
• I'm also going to start right now so that I can get another eight months in.  I might try to cover quite a bit of it this summer, when the Great Books are mostly narrative, so that I can be on a once a month schedule starting in January.
• The book has the plays listed from one to one hundred, which is a mistake in my opinion.  I'm going to work them in reverse order, ending up at the greatest play of all time (per Daniel S. Burt, the author).  Each month I'll let you know what the next play is so you can read along.
• The works are pretty heavily 20th century.  Some of the scripts are available online, especially with the older ones.  I don't personally plan on investing much money here so anything that I can't find online or in anthologies, I'll try and get from the library.  If there is a Project Gutenberg version, I'll link to it.

As with the Great Books project, I'm inviting anyone who wants to tag along and read with me.  It's a big commitment and I'm not looking to hold anyone to it.  If you want to dip in and out from time to time, feel free.

First up is 'Peter Pan' by J M Barrie.  The play can be found here.