pickThe play-reading spree continues! I recently finished off these two in quick succession and loved them both. Even on the page, you can see how engaging Fleabag was as a live solo work, and being a huge fan of the TV series, it was cool to see what was chosen for expansion in a new medium. Meanwhile Choir Boy is one of my favorite new plays of the past decade(ish). One review called it "a poem inside a play" and I couldn't agree more.
Even the stage directions slay me! You know I can't resist the move to wax poetic about my favorite art form. #SeeMoreTheatre
pickChoose your fighter!
In last few years, a number of new plays have been written that explore, critique, or investigate Arthur Miller's classic. One of them, John Proctor is the Villain, will have a Broadway run this spring so I figured it was a good time to revisit them as a series of sorts. Each retelling is great in its own way, but the tagged book by the unmatched Sarah Ruhl is the true stunner- surprising, heartbreaking, complex, and defiant.
Two weeks ago, I saw the new Broadway production of Romeo and Juliet, so of course I had to revisit the source material beforehand! Like a million others, R&J was my introduction to Shakespeare. I don't love this play but I'm grateful for the teacher who made my 6th grade class read it. It made me a stronger, more confident reader in general and got me curious enough to seek out more of Shakespeare's work, enriching my whole life as a result. ❤️
pickA short but sweet exploration of the power of comedy via thousands-year-old dirty jokes. Along the way we get meditations on power, patriarchy, suppression, subversion, and the beef between Aristophanes (lauded ancient playwright known as the Father of Comedy) and Ariphrades (writer referenced in Aristotle‘s Poetics, but with no surviving works and now best remembered for his fondness for cunnilingus). Ancient theatre stays teaching us, folks.
so-soI liked this one more than I didn't, but in taking aim at "boring" theatre, the author comes off as supercilious, as if his tastes, ideas, and aesthetics are superior to all else. I agree that we need more boldness in theatre, that there need to be new approaches to the development of new plays and the structures of arts institutions, that artists need more freedom to fail- but I also wish we could be more "Yes, and..." in our thinking. ???
I'm unbelievably excited to be seeing one of my all-time favorite actors, Paul Gross, in King Lear today at the Stratford Festival. I'd been saving his episodes on the Outrageous Fortune podcast for the drive up, and I'm so glad I did. Listening to him talk about the play, and the struggles and rewards of making art more generally, was the perfect teaser for the performance and made me unexpectedly emotional more than once. #SeeMoreTheatre
pickThe author's personal narrative here is not always overly compelling, but the account of the work undertaken is phenomenal. Theatre of War makes an ancient tradition alive and present on military bases, in hospice centers, carceral institutions, homeless shelters, mental health facilities and more, doing exactly what theatre, at it's best, is meant to do- challenge, inspire, heal, create community, and bring us into dialogue and reflection.
so-soThis book features:
-An utterly despicable, spoiled man-child of a narrator
-Fragile masculinity and misogyny galore
-A 5-year-old child who says that "morning is healing" and describes the weather as "breathtaking"
-Not one female character who ever behaves like an actual human being instead of a pair of sentient breasts
But it also includes the passage outlined above and goddamn if my idealistic, theatre-loving heart didn't cry when I read it.
I'm a big believer in the power of applied theatre, and was very excited to discover each of these titles in small bookstores as I traveled earlier this year. It feels like they'd be good companion reads so I'm starting now with the tagged book. We'll see where it takes me! #SeeMoreTheatre #DoMoreTheatre #ActOut
