Hey all,
I'm looking for a reading list/suggestions for great one-act plays. A couple by Susan Glaspell come to mind, but not too many others. Any suggestions?
Hey all,
I'm looking for a reading list/suggestions for great one-act plays. A couple by Susan Glaspell come to mind, but not too many others. Any suggestions?
“Oh crap”
-- Hellboy
Oleanna by David Mamet
Speed-The-Plow by David Mamet
Blackbird by David Harrower
Betrayal by Harold Pinter (it can be performed with an interval but it's only 90 minutes)
The Dumb Waiter by Harold Pinter
I don't know how good they are but the films Baby Doll and This Property is Not Condemned are based on them:
21 Wagons of Cotton by Tennessee Williams
This Property is Not Condemned by Tennessee Williams
That's all I can think of so far.
Try the French classicists. All one acters, because of unity in place, time and action.
Molière is one, but there must be more.
Should Waiting for Godot not be one either?
One has to laugh before being happy, because otherwise one risks to die before having laughed.
"Je crains [...] que l'âme ne se vide à ces passe-temps vains, et que le fin du fin ne soit la fin des fins." (Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Acte III, Scène VII)
Godot is 'A Tragicomedy in Two Acts'.Originally Posted by kiki1982
"The farther he goes the more good it does me. I don’t want philosophies, tracts, dogmas, creeds, ways out, truths, answers, nothing from the bargain basement. He is the most courageous, remorseless writer going and the more he grinds my nose in the sh1t the more I am grateful to him..."
-- Harold Pinter on Samuel Beckett
They're still split into acts. A one-act play would be between 30-90 minutes.
I believe Huis Clos would be one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huis_clos
The Glass Menagerie --Tennessee Williams
Endgame--Samuel Beckett
The Zoo Story--Edward Albee
You could probably find a list more quickly by googling "great one act plays" or something.
John C Thompson wrote many good plays of that type
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