Lord Macbeth
01-18-2011, 10:32 AM
Well, the Author Showdowns have worked well so far, so for a change of pace I thought we could try something new--and yet something incredibly old and done a million times already...
A Top 10 list.
Yes, it's been done so many times it really IS almsot silly, but hey--it's also fun, if you go into it with the mindset that it's just for fun and there's no need to throw a fit or mention the absurdity of ranking texts from different authors and eras in a neat little list.
That being said: All the world's a stage, so give your best performance on this one, folks, and enter, Stage Right from the wings, your Top 10 lists! :D
Criteria:
-Literary significance, influence, and importance
-The significance, influence, and importance of the author himself (or herself)
-Style (Quite possibly the most subjective category here)
-Endurance (ie, how has the play held up over time? How does it fare today?)
And since this list is for PLAYS, an extra thing to take into consideration from that which I usually include...
-Performance history and popularity (ie, is this play still performed? How many different ways has it been done?
So, without further ado, I begin my list, appropriately enough, with...
10. Much Ado about Nothing by William Shakespeare:
Spoiler alert--this will NOT be the last time this Shakespeare fellow cracks this list for me. ;) My absolute favorite comedy, hands down. Now, if you're a Shakespeare afficianado or, really, if you've ever heard of the man--and if you haven't...WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? Get thee to a nunnery, or at least to a library or YouTube THIS INSTANT!--you may be wondering, "What about A Midsummer Night's Dream?" And as much as I like that play, I really and truly do find the characters here all the better, and very often in plays, and particularly in Shakespeare's comedies, the assessment of the play has to start with the characters, as the plots are often adapted at least in part from other sources, so if not for the brilliance of Shakespeare's characters--and, yes, the little matter of the lines in his play being, on the whole, being simply incredible and still largely hold up as being among the best and most resonant in literature; if we ever do a Top 10 for LINES...well, suffice it to say you could easily fill that Top 10 with all Shakespeare lines, and possibly all Hamlet and Macbeth lines--we might very well be lauding some other writer as being the poet and playwright lauereate of the English language. (In addition I AM writing this from the standpoint of being a theatre person, so there's certainly a bit of a bias towards the characters in my view of literature as a whole, simply because I have a bias towards towards actors, in the same way I value philosophy highly and am a huge proponent of that, thus making my appreciation of a work be colored somewaht by its philosophical content and messages--everyone has a bias, a preference or two in literature, and these are mine.) All in all, while A Midsummer Night's Dream is a fantastic play with some very creative characters, I am personally of the opinion that Beatrice and Benedict from THIS play are THE BEST Shakespearean couple PERIOD--Romeo and Juliet, Petruccio and Kate, Lady and Lord Macbeth, and so on...they may be great couples in their own right, but Beatrice and Benedict are so concurrently bilarious and yet so believable that for me they're simply the best. If you've ever seen this play--and if you haven't, get thee to YouTube, two GREAT versions of it are currently on there, one with Kenneth Branagh and a young Robert Sean Leonard, better known as Dr. James Wilson from my beloved "House MD," the only show on today I watch, and one with modern language and a modern setting done by the BBC for their Shakespeare Retold series--you know how much Beatrice and Benedict argue...and ultimately, I think, that comes as close to a real depiction of love as it gets. We AREN'T all Romeos and Juliets, perfectly in love and in awe of one another, rather, we get on each otehr's envers and like to make snide comments and battle wits with one another...but at the end of the day it's those sort of people who do so who really DO stay togetehr, whereas the "perfect marriage" types and mentality lead to our ever-increasing divorce rate. With two of my favorite characters and a GREAT commentary on the battle of the sexes as well as on the nature of love, Much Ado About Nothing is a perfect fit for my #10 spot.
9. Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw:
And for the second time I must begin my review of a listed play by stating that this is NOT the last time the playwright cracks my list. :D If this play doesn't ring an immediate bell with you--My Fair Lady. Arguably one of the greatest musicals of all-time--I know I love it, am lucky enough to have been able to have been in a production of it once in a small capacity, and I'd certainly rank the musical highly, which for someone who generally doesn't care for quite a few musicals is something else--My Fair Lady is, essentially, Pygmalion with music and Julie Andrews (or Audrey Hepburn, if you're watching the Oscar-winning musical version) and Rex Harrison added in as the infamous Eliza Doolitle and Henry Higgins. I'd be practicing a nasty form of mendacity if I didn't acknowledge that Pygmalion is helped into this slot by it's musical cousin, but as I've already noted a play's influence and it's performance history as portions of my criterion, and the musical really IS almost exactly the same with the addition of musical numbers, I don't see that as being unfair or disingenuous. Here we have another case of great characters elevating a play for me--Henry Higgins is, truth be told, not too far off from myself in real life (though if I had Rex Harrison's great English bite those who somehow tolerate me might very well have to call it quits in that regard) and Eliza Doolittle is such a great character to sympathize with. Add to that Pickering as a perfect, mild foil for the abrasive Higgins and the riotous Alfred Doolittle, and you can see why this play, either in its "default" or musical form, remains one of the most popular today. From a directorial standpoint, interestingly enough, it's also one of the easiest and hardest to cast at the same time, as there are really four roles of great importance (Mrs. Pierce and Freddie are decent supporting characters, to be sure, but as long as they aren't incredibly horribly miscast the production really won't suffer too much) and so it's not, say, like a Shakespearean tragedy or some of Shaw and Williams' other works, where there's a great ensemble--the play lives and dies on those four; cast the parts well and you'll more likely than not have a tremendous production, cast Pickering or Alfred poorly and your production might still be decent, but should you miscast Eliza or Higgins it's almost an assured bomb....but the play itself, however, is anything but, and truly remains one of the most "loverly" stage plays today, and one of the few musicals I personally will always be happy to attend.
8. A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen:
If you've never seen or read a Henrik Ibsen play...well, be careful if you ever do--just as Shakespeare's plays can be beyond brilliant when done well but done poorly can be a complete artistic disaster, the same goes for Ibsen, and arguably more so in that at the very least there's a natural flow and poetry to Shakespeare's lines, as the plays are so often written at least partially prose, whereas Ibsen was one of the first and one of the best playwrights from the Realism school of playwrighting, and as a result of this the plays DO, to their undying credit, really feel very natural and very realistic, but if the real-life actors, then, do a horribly unconvincing job, well, it retains that realistic quality and FEELS horribly unconvincing. The great flip side of all that, of course, is that provided the actors do a good job Ibsen's plays WILL draw you in and make you feel right in the midst of very-understandable and relatable drama. Ibsen's one of the most renowned playwrights of his era and all-time, easily a Top 10 playwright if we were to do such a list on just the playwrights, and he has a LARGE base of support that would push form him--not unfoundedly--to be included in the Top 5, and what's more, some would even place him second only to Shakespeare himself. While I don't know about Top 5--nothing agaisnt Ibsen, but that's just a tough call to make for anyone who's name isn't Shakespeare or, arguably, Sophocles--I WOULD place him in the Top 10 easily. Why do I mention all of this? Simply because Ibsen has a LOT of plays that are well-known and critically acclaimed, from Hedda Gabler to An Enemy of the People to Ghosts and many more, and some might be wondering where THESE are on my list; simply put, while I DO like Ibsen and have read and seen all of these (with the exception of An Enemy of the People) I just couldn't quite place these plays on the list, so consider them honorary mentions. The paly that DID make the list, however, is just in another league, in my opinion, and has one of the BEST feminist characters in Nora and one of the BEST endings, one I won't menion here, so as not to ruin to ruin it for anyone who hasn't seen the work yet, as it's an ending that's a masterpiece of less equalling SO much more, and that as much as I love Shakespeare not EVERY play has to end with a grand oratorio, not to mention the fact that without the context of the play behind it the ending seems almost nothing. And yet it's EVERYTHING, the perfect summation of one of the best examinations of married life and certainly caters to the feminist critics; if you LOVE feminist works and characters...well, really you'll probably love ALL of Ibsen's plays and leading ladies, but you'll almost certainly ADORE this play, Nora, and the ending. I'd be lying, however, if I didn't admit that part of what elevates this play is, simply put, THE TITLE--read the title, watch the play (and I mean WATCH, Ibsen, for as great a playwright as he is, can also be notoriously-dry on paper at times, and this and really all of his works are definitely plays you want to at least see BEFORE reading, as the dry realism works far better on a stage than just on paper) and then, taking in all that you've just seen, take a look at the title again--it fits like a glove.
7. Antigone by Sophocles:
I suspect that anyone being suprised by this pick isn't shocked at Sophocles making the list, bt that it's this play and not Oedipus Rex that's here. In all honest I could eaily ut either work on a Top 10 Plays list and be perfectly happy, and likewise I wouldn't really mind having both on there. That being said there are a LOT of other great plays and playwrights that deserve recognition, and with two playwrights already accounting for 6 of the 10 slots, space is already limited, and I feel that while both are deep plays and still hold up thousands of years later, Antigone, with one of the earliest strong female characters in all of literature as well as the added issue of the State vs. the individual palying a key role in the play, seems to hold up better all these years later. Oedipus' tale, yes, is still great and still one that is relevant, but the exploration of his hubris can be applied to Antigone as well, and where Oedipus today is remembered mostly for being one of the first great tragic characters adn for the psychological complex that bears his name and launched a thousand critical essays on so many other characters, Antigone's feminist and individualist stances give two for the price of one and, in my opinion, her actions seem somewhat bolder and more striking, partially because of the added ideas she has to work off of and against, and partially because she has Oedipus' story already behind her to work off of as well, allowing her story a bit more textual depth. Tiresias, as he does so often in the Greek tragedies, comes and dispenses advice that, as usual, adds all the more philosophic meaning to the work, and then there's the case of Creon--a heroic figure in Oedipus Rex and one who pointed out Oedipus' faults and missteps, the fact HE now errs in jsut the same way gives a strong message about the corruption power brings and how it can truly turn a man, and as a reult Creon and the piece as a whole feels more dynamic as a result.
6. The Merchant of Venice by Shakespeare:
I've already mentioned this play in other posts enough to give you an idea of why I love it so much and hold it in siuch high esteem, so for brevity's sake I'll leave it at that.
5. The Glass Menagerie by Williams:
For having a title alluding to something fragile and unsubstantiative, is incredibly full of themes and ideas, and likewise, for a play with three leads and one supporting character making up the cast, Williams makes it each one of those characters, even the supporting one, really memorable. Tom Wingfield, sister Laura, mother Amanda, and the Gentleman Caller--and that's IT, and yet each stick out in your mind, play a specific role, and what's interesting and perhaps one of the greatest strengths of the play, the audience doesn't identify with just one or two of them, but ALL FO THEM in some capacity. We feel for Tom, stuck in a dead-end factory job that leaves him utterly dissatisfied with life as he works long hours at a menial post just to make ends meet when he is, in fact, teeming with artistic talent and wants nothing more than to travel and be free of his surroundings. We feel for Laura, so shy and prone to severe anexiety that it really is, for her, almost a debilitating disease, getting sick and terrified at even the idea of having to type a certain amount of words in a moment, and with her mother and Tom's strong personalities dominating the household she's left to her titular glass menagerie of glass figurines, playing out the life in quiet fantasy she can't lead in reality. We feel for Amanda, a Southern belle in her day and exceedingly popular, once so beautiful and wioth so many suitors, so many offers in life, who now finds herself living in a miserable life with her chosen suitor--her chosen path--deserting her and left only with memories of a time gone by and the hopes she can live vicariously through a daughter that couldn't be less suited to her ideals, even less so in a world so changed and removed from the world and time she's trying to hold onto and relive. Even the Gentleman Caller, even someone who has a comparatively short amount of stage time and far fewer lines than the other three, even HE we can somewhat feel for as he's an outsider dragged into an uncomfortable household that, upon his visit, becomes even more so, and appropriately enough given the title, as careful as he wants to let the hopes of Amanda and Laura down, he knows he can't do it without shattering said hopes. There's a LOT of great symbolsim in this play, in a lot of Williams' plays, but especially this one, and the glass menagerie ITSELF, given the conext of Amanda's fixation on the rose-colored past, Tom's preoccupation with the movies to vicariously view the kinds of adventures he most dearly wants to lead and yet never can, and Laura's very nature, the menagerie itself is in my opinion Williams' best use of symbolism in ANY of his plays and one of the best uses of symbolism PERIOD in the 20th century. All of THAT and so much more--from a play with three main characters and one supporting man. So much in seemingly so little. All of this is more than enough to land the play on my Top 10 list, but it's the ENDING that takes it all the way up to #5--it's another one I dare not spoil, but suffice it to say that, true to the play, it comes like absoulte LIGHTNING...when I first read this play I was really thinking "When is the dramatic turn coming?" and then it hits in an absolutely spectacularly-devestating fashion. It IS so devestating, and what makes it even more so is that it comes so late in the play, at the very end, and so while the action alone is enough to be highly tragic, its made even more so by the fact there's practically no falling action or recovery time afterward--it happens, it shatters the characters' lives, and neither they nor the audience are left with any time to pick up the pieces.
4. Man and Superman by Shaw:
This is the sort of play that only gets better the more you know and the more you read and the more you LIVE. It's one of if not THE most actively-engaging play I've ever seen; you simply are forced to think while everything's going on, and what's more is you're forced to think fast, becuase the characters sure do, and to have any hope of understanding the play--and sometimes even just the basics of what's going on--you have to keep up with the frentic pace the characters set. To put it another way, if we were to think of the great pieces of literature as great musical pieces, this would be the literary equivalent of the incredibly-fast, incredibly-complex "Largo al factotum" from "The Barber of Seville." Even THAT, however, isn't enough for this work difficulty-wise, as not only does it have to move lightning-fast and force the audience to be extremely active and engaged, it is a LONG work, and I mean LONG--four acts, each an hour each, and that's with a frentic, Figaro-esque pace, any slower or more tame and this piece carries on even longer. As a result this is, without a doubt, the most fatiguing piece on my list to take in; most plays on this list, while you certainly can and really should actively be engaged with them, will let you get by--albeit with a lesser experience--if you want to be a bit passive in your viewing. Not this work. You either are ready to keep up with Shaw or Shaw leaves you in the dust and NEVER offers a hand up or a chance to catch your breath, so you need to be in great analytical and viewing condition. ;) What makes all of this work, however, and makes you WANT to try and keep up with the frentic pace, long running time, and densely-philosophical dialogue and subject material is the fact that if you DO not only do you feel great for doing so--really, it IS an accomplishment if you can keep up with this work--but the subject matter, dialogue, plot, and characters are all so intruiging you genuinely want to keep up with all of them. And what is that subject matter? Simply put--everything. This is one of those plays that seems to touch upon--or at least tries to touch upon--everything, which certainly contributes to it's complexity and pace and length; so much is talked about that the play goes on and on, and the rapidity with which the characters will switch from one topic to another is such that you're forced to process so much quickly. Marriage, love, politics, the nature of humanity, the meaning of life, heaven and hell, good and evil, perspectivism, societal pressures--that's just a sampling of the major topics that come up in this work. As with all the other plays on this list, the characters, too, stand out; Jack Tanner, Ann, and Ramsden are simply unforgettable, and for a paly so provocative, not only will you likely take sides, but in doing so you make something of a statement about what you believe, and the supporting cast keeps the play going until the play goes to hell--literally. The third act, when you take in the play with no foreknowledge of what's to come, comes as a complete and utter shock and a once difficult and complex play becomes hellish in the best possible meaning of that term. Acts I and II center around the goings on in a Victorian-era group of people in first England and then, when they hit the road, in the countryside. Act III, however, completely changes the play, without warning, as instead of the highly-realistic Victorian setting that was just starting to become familiar, the action shifts to a proto-existentialist version of Hell, and with the change in scenery comes a partial change in characters; just as we were beginning to get used to Jack and Ann's frantic pace of debate and become intrigued in Violet's affairs these characters disappear for an act while their ACTORS portay new, highly-representative characters in hell, from Don Juann to a memorialized officer to a proper Spanish lady to the Devil, and just as we were beginning to become accustomed to the realism of their situation and dialogue we get perhaps the most prolonged metaphysical debate in theatrical history. The entire play is littered with allusions to many authors, Shakespeare and Dante in particular, and then this third act ups that level of allusion even more and introduces more figures, going so far as to not only make mention of figures like Wagner and then even more frequent mention of Nietzsche--whose Ubermensch, translated here, as it often is, as "Superman," is referenced by the title of the work--and going so far as to treat both of them almost as characters in that while they never appear their "actions" in heaven and hell are referred to. An allusion to "Abandon all hope ye who enter here" from Dante's The Inferno only adds to this feeling that, indeed, this IS a theatrical version of Dante's Hell, but instead of the circles and gruesome punsihments a seemingly-sublime, happy life is found, setting the stage for so much of the philosophical debate on all of the above and more--"Don Juan in Hell," as it's often referred to, is RELENTLESS in its pacing and material, and is not only the longest act of the play, but is in fact so long it's sometimes performed by itself. In the performance history of the play it's this third act that's so often scrutinized, not just over the sheer amount of material discussed or how it so raidcally and abruptly yet geniusly departs from the plot of the play, but if it will even be performed at all becomes a question, as the other three acts are, by themselves, enough for a very long performance, and so leaving in this act, longer than each of the other three, makes the play almost Shakespearean or Greek in its length, and as the days of epic Greek plays or day-long Shakespearean performances are long gone it's this third act that's often cut, and it's one of the few times a cut really bothers me in a production; in all fairness almost all productions feature cuts in their source material as, again, otherwise it's simply too long for our age of short attention spans, but this is a case where cutting, even though not doing so makes the play almost absurdly-long by modern standards, is simply out of the question in my opinoon, as that third act adds so much weight in every way to the piece that cutting it reduces one of the most philosophic plays of all-time to a fair period piece that then becomes "just" about love and marriage. Those elements alone are enough to make the work good, but it's that third act and the fleshing out of all those other ideas that, otherwise, are left being discussed only superficially, that makes this piece a masterpiece, and in all honesty, if you cannot handle the length or depth or pace of the paly with that thrid act left in, chances are you're probably not ready to take on this work of nearly-unparalleled complexity and pace. It's more than a mere piece of literature or a play--it's an EXPERIENCE, and an intense one at that, and one that MUST be experienced in full to be properly appreciated.
3. Macbeth by Shakespeare:
If you don't know why I'd rank this play so high...you need to get your eyes checked (and Is this a DAGGER I see before me?!) ;)
2. Waiting For Godot by Sameul Beckett:
SEE this play, DON'T READ IT, at least not the first time you decide to experience it. As much as Shakespeare's palys are even better when seen and Ibsen's are rather dry just read, this is a play that absolutely needs to be seen because if you DON'T see it I'd argue you don't actually know the work, it depends that much upon your actually seeing it and there being actual actors to play the roles of Didi, Gogo, Pozzo, and Lucky and paly them well. As much as Man and Superman can be very existential-sounding at times and many other plays, including the oft-compared Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, have some great existential themes and ideas, the aformentioned R&G so much so it's really a second Godot mingled with the plot of the already-somewhat-existential Hamlet, this work is the theatrical BIBLE on existentialism and modern theatre. and if you have a questiuon as to why that might be, for a VERY short answer, take a good look at the last word of the title, how close that is to ANOTHER word, and the fact that this play was debuted in the post-WWII, post-Holocaust world. Waiting for...? And--spoiler alert--the fact that Mr. GODOT never comes...but always sends a messenger to tell Didi and Gogo he'll "definitely" come the next day, as hard as days are to distinguish for the pair, as their lives appear meaningless and that the two lack a distinct "self" about them for the most part, as they're really two halves of one whole and you have just the most basic and surface elements of what makes this play the product of the thought of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Camus, Sartre, and the other existentialist philosophers. What elevates Godot even more, however, on top of all that, is that fact that it's the paly that breaks nearly all the rules of storytelling and yet somehow emerges a masterpiece. There is no plot--two men wait for someone who never come and are met by a couple other men who are on their way to somewhere else. That's IT. In terms of a traditional plot, that's ALL there is to this work. There are only four characters, five if you count the messenger who comes in at the end of each act to give his two lines or so of dialogue. Of those four characters, only three speak with any sort of frequency, as Lucky speaks ONCE...and oh the things he has to say! If I ever do a Top 10 for monologues, Lucky's would have to rank highly on there as not only is it deep, hilarious, tragic, and philosophically puzzling all at the same time, it's the ONLY lines of dialogue the character gives the entire paly, and it comes about two thirds through the second act of a two-act play--there's been nearly an entire play's worth of buildup for this speech, and so when it finally comes out it carries even MORE weight, and what makes it all the harder is that it's supposed to be said lightning-fast...and so if you're watching the play for the first time and have no forewarning about this speeech coming you're most likely going to be caught completely offguard by it...if there were such a thing as a "drive-by monologuing" this would be it. Lucky is, in fact, one of the reasons this play needs to be scene--with the exception of that one long and incredibly-difficult monologue Lucky's a mute the entire play but his body language and actions onstage add so much to the piece that if it's not seen a good deal has been lost. As with other existential plays, like R&G and, to an extent, Man and Superman, symbolism is huge in Godot, as it can be argued that even the characters themselves are symbols. The rock, the tree, their bowler hats, Pozzo's props...everything has an existential meaning. Again, however, all of this takes place in a play with practically no plot, and yet for all of that it's incredibly hilarious in the vaudville-style of performance and at the same time incredibly tragic--Didi and Gogo are lost in life, they're miserable the way they are, they're trapped by their own incomplete nature, and even comment on this point, repeatedly trying to leave one another only to come rushing back and finding relief at the sight of the other...because as miserable as they might be together, wating for help that will never come, in a desolate, God-forsaken (perhaps LITERALLY God-foraken, if, again, the title is to be taken into account) wasteland, their only food radishes, their only way of apssing time attempting to sleep or to argue or to engage in such menial tasks as swapping hats or pulling off a boot, their only contact being two people who are of absolutely no help and yet they speak to each time just out of their sheer need to talk to someone else and make human contact...inspite of how bad all of THAT is, in their life waiting for Mr. Godot together, life seems even worse facing all that ALONE. Perhaps the most powerful part of the play and one of the reasons--all those incredibly symbolic, literary, and philosophical reasons already stated--it remains one of the most performed and poured over plays today is the fact that this is a very hard work to get a feeling about, and after seeing it for the first time there's a good chance you won't know HOW to feel about it. It's so hilarious and fantastic, the goings on so absurd--and yet that's also what makes it so tragic and chilling, that as absurd as the work SEEMS...how absurd and far from the truth is it REALLY? Sartre famously said "Hell is other people," and ironically enough it's the one person that never comes that makes Didi and Gogo's life a living hel and, as the second act indicates, very possibly a perpetual hell, and, perhaps most chilling of all, a hell that doesn't seem to have a way out. What if Didi and Gogo stopped waiting for Godot to come? They're so misrable and utterly lost in life without him, and only the hope they have each day that Godot WILL come each day and help them--though with what they admit they're not quite sure anymore, they think they might have forgotten and will need help remmebering what their problem even is in the first place--and without that hope life certainly seems hopeless for them...they CAN leave, CAN stop waiting for Godot, but their fear brings them back and so they ultimately CAN'T leave, and so even worse than a golden cage they're trapped in a cage with no bars or barriers but themselves, and they can't seperate as without each otehr they're left even more incomplete and unable to function; they're free as a bird and yet trapped as a rat. Even their attempts at suicide don't work, they're FORCED to live out this hell...and if Didi and Gogo can't break free of their hell which, it seems, they at least partially create for themselves, can we hope to escape our own demons, or are we doomed to wait out life, with each tomorrow and each hope proving empty and leading the next, enterance after entrance into a hell from which there is No Exit?
1. Hamlet by Shakespeare:
Given how much I've written for the OTHER plays on this list...suffice it to say a write up of even a few of the reasons why I'd rank Hamlet #1 would probably run as long as the rest of the entire list, and so I'll just leave it at that, with the Great Dane in the top slot, and "the rest is silence."
A Top 10 list.
Yes, it's been done so many times it really IS almsot silly, but hey--it's also fun, if you go into it with the mindset that it's just for fun and there's no need to throw a fit or mention the absurdity of ranking texts from different authors and eras in a neat little list.
That being said: All the world's a stage, so give your best performance on this one, folks, and enter, Stage Right from the wings, your Top 10 lists! :D
Criteria:
-Literary significance, influence, and importance
-The significance, influence, and importance of the author himself (or herself)
-Style (Quite possibly the most subjective category here)
-Endurance (ie, how has the play held up over time? How does it fare today?)
And since this list is for PLAYS, an extra thing to take into consideration from that which I usually include...
-Performance history and popularity (ie, is this play still performed? How many different ways has it been done?
So, without further ado, I begin my list, appropriately enough, with...
10. Much Ado about Nothing by William Shakespeare:
Spoiler alert--this will NOT be the last time this Shakespeare fellow cracks this list for me. ;) My absolute favorite comedy, hands down. Now, if you're a Shakespeare afficianado or, really, if you've ever heard of the man--and if you haven't...WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? Get thee to a nunnery, or at least to a library or YouTube THIS INSTANT!--you may be wondering, "What about A Midsummer Night's Dream?" And as much as I like that play, I really and truly do find the characters here all the better, and very often in plays, and particularly in Shakespeare's comedies, the assessment of the play has to start with the characters, as the plots are often adapted at least in part from other sources, so if not for the brilliance of Shakespeare's characters--and, yes, the little matter of the lines in his play being, on the whole, being simply incredible and still largely hold up as being among the best and most resonant in literature; if we ever do a Top 10 for LINES...well, suffice it to say you could easily fill that Top 10 with all Shakespeare lines, and possibly all Hamlet and Macbeth lines--we might very well be lauding some other writer as being the poet and playwright lauereate of the English language. (In addition I AM writing this from the standpoint of being a theatre person, so there's certainly a bit of a bias towards the characters in my view of literature as a whole, simply because I have a bias towards towards actors, in the same way I value philosophy highly and am a huge proponent of that, thus making my appreciation of a work be colored somewaht by its philosophical content and messages--everyone has a bias, a preference or two in literature, and these are mine.) All in all, while A Midsummer Night's Dream is a fantastic play with some very creative characters, I am personally of the opinion that Beatrice and Benedict from THIS play are THE BEST Shakespearean couple PERIOD--Romeo and Juliet, Petruccio and Kate, Lady and Lord Macbeth, and so on...they may be great couples in their own right, but Beatrice and Benedict are so concurrently bilarious and yet so believable that for me they're simply the best. If you've ever seen this play--and if you haven't, get thee to YouTube, two GREAT versions of it are currently on there, one with Kenneth Branagh and a young Robert Sean Leonard, better known as Dr. James Wilson from my beloved "House MD," the only show on today I watch, and one with modern language and a modern setting done by the BBC for their Shakespeare Retold series--you know how much Beatrice and Benedict argue...and ultimately, I think, that comes as close to a real depiction of love as it gets. We AREN'T all Romeos and Juliets, perfectly in love and in awe of one another, rather, we get on each otehr's envers and like to make snide comments and battle wits with one another...but at the end of the day it's those sort of people who do so who really DO stay togetehr, whereas the "perfect marriage" types and mentality lead to our ever-increasing divorce rate. With two of my favorite characters and a GREAT commentary on the battle of the sexes as well as on the nature of love, Much Ado About Nothing is a perfect fit for my #10 spot.
9. Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw:
And for the second time I must begin my review of a listed play by stating that this is NOT the last time the playwright cracks my list. :D If this play doesn't ring an immediate bell with you--My Fair Lady. Arguably one of the greatest musicals of all-time--I know I love it, am lucky enough to have been able to have been in a production of it once in a small capacity, and I'd certainly rank the musical highly, which for someone who generally doesn't care for quite a few musicals is something else--My Fair Lady is, essentially, Pygmalion with music and Julie Andrews (or Audrey Hepburn, if you're watching the Oscar-winning musical version) and Rex Harrison added in as the infamous Eliza Doolitle and Henry Higgins. I'd be practicing a nasty form of mendacity if I didn't acknowledge that Pygmalion is helped into this slot by it's musical cousin, but as I've already noted a play's influence and it's performance history as portions of my criterion, and the musical really IS almost exactly the same with the addition of musical numbers, I don't see that as being unfair or disingenuous. Here we have another case of great characters elevating a play for me--Henry Higgins is, truth be told, not too far off from myself in real life (though if I had Rex Harrison's great English bite those who somehow tolerate me might very well have to call it quits in that regard) and Eliza Doolittle is such a great character to sympathize with. Add to that Pickering as a perfect, mild foil for the abrasive Higgins and the riotous Alfred Doolittle, and you can see why this play, either in its "default" or musical form, remains one of the most popular today. From a directorial standpoint, interestingly enough, it's also one of the easiest and hardest to cast at the same time, as there are really four roles of great importance (Mrs. Pierce and Freddie are decent supporting characters, to be sure, but as long as they aren't incredibly horribly miscast the production really won't suffer too much) and so it's not, say, like a Shakespearean tragedy or some of Shaw and Williams' other works, where there's a great ensemble--the play lives and dies on those four; cast the parts well and you'll more likely than not have a tremendous production, cast Pickering or Alfred poorly and your production might still be decent, but should you miscast Eliza or Higgins it's almost an assured bomb....but the play itself, however, is anything but, and truly remains one of the most "loverly" stage plays today, and one of the few musicals I personally will always be happy to attend.
8. A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen:
If you've never seen or read a Henrik Ibsen play...well, be careful if you ever do--just as Shakespeare's plays can be beyond brilliant when done well but done poorly can be a complete artistic disaster, the same goes for Ibsen, and arguably more so in that at the very least there's a natural flow and poetry to Shakespeare's lines, as the plays are so often written at least partially prose, whereas Ibsen was one of the first and one of the best playwrights from the Realism school of playwrighting, and as a result of this the plays DO, to their undying credit, really feel very natural and very realistic, but if the real-life actors, then, do a horribly unconvincing job, well, it retains that realistic quality and FEELS horribly unconvincing. The great flip side of all that, of course, is that provided the actors do a good job Ibsen's plays WILL draw you in and make you feel right in the midst of very-understandable and relatable drama. Ibsen's one of the most renowned playwrights of his era and all-time, easily a Top 10 playwright if we were to do such a list on just the playwrights, and he has a LARGE base of support that would push form him--not unfoundedly--to be included in the Top 5, and what's more, some would even place him second only to Shakespeare himself. While I don't know about Top 5--nothing agaisnt Ibsen, but that's just a tough call to make for anyone who's name isn't Shakespeare or, arguably, Sophocles--I WOULD place him in the Top 10 easily. Why do I mention all of this? Simply because Ibsen has a LOT of plays that are well-known and critically acclaimed, from Hedda Gabler to An Enemy of the People to Ghosts and many more, and some might be wondering where THESE are on my list; simply put, while I DO like Ibsen and have read and seen all of these (with the exception of An Enemy of the People) I just couldn't quite place these plays on the list, so consider them honorary mentions. The paly that DID make the list, however, is just in another league, in my opinion, and has one of the BEST feminist characters in Nora and one of the BEST endings, one I won't menion here, so as not to ruin to ruin it for anyone who hasn't seen the work yet, as it's an ending that's a masterpiece of less equalling SO much more, and that as much as I love Shakespeare not EVERY play has to end with a grand oratorio, not to mention the fact that without the context of the play behind it the ending seems almost nothing. And yet it's EVERYTHING, the perfect summation of one of the best examinations of married life and certainly caters to the feminist critics; if you LOVE feminist works and characters...well, really you'll probably love ALL of Ibsen's plays and leading ladies, but you'll almost certainly ADORE this play, Nora, and the ending. I'd be lying, however, if I didn't admit that part of what elevates this play is, simply put, THE TITLE--read the title, watch the play (and I mean WATCH, Ibsen, for as great a playwright as he is, can also be notoriously-dry on paper at times, and this and really all of his works are definitely plays you want to at least see BEFORE reading, as the dry realism works far better on a stage than just on paper) and then, taking in all that you've just seen, take a look at the title again--it fits like a glove.
7. Antigone by Sophocles:
I suspect that anyone being suprised by this pick isn't shocked at Sophocles making the list, bt that it's this play and not Oedipus Rex that's here. In all honest I could eaily ut either work on a Top 10 Plays list and be perfectly happy, and likewise I wouldn't really mind having both on there. That being said there are a LOT of other great plays and playwrights that deserve recognition, and with two playwrights already accounting for 6 of the 10 slots, space is already limited, and I feel that while both are deep plays and still hold up thousands of years later, Antigone, with one of the earliest strong female characters in all of literature as well as the added issue of the State vs. the individual palying a key role in the play, seems to hold up better all these years later. Oedipus' tale, yes, is still great and still one that is relevant, but the exploration of his hubris can be applied to Antigone as well, and where Oedipus today is remembered mostly for being one of the first great tragic characters adn for the psychological complex that bears his name and launched a thousand critical essays on so many other characters, Antigone's feminist and individualist stances give two for the price of one and, in my opinion, her actions seem somewhat bolder and more striking, partially because of the added ideas she has to work off of and against, and partially because she has Oedipus' story already behind her to work off of as well, allowing her story a bit more textual depth. Tiresias, as he does so often in the Greek tragedies, comes and dispenses advice that, as usual, adds all the more philosophic meaning to the work, and then there's the case of Creon--a heroic figure in Oedipus Rex and one who pointed out Oedipus' faults and missteps, the fact HE now errs in jsut the same way gives a strong message about the corruption power brings and how it can truly turn a man, and as a reult Creon and the piece as a whole feels more dynamic as a result.
6. The Merchant of Venice by Shakespeare:
I've already mentioned this play in other posts enough to give you an idea of why I love it so much and hold it in siuch high esteem, so for brevity's sake I'll leave it at that.
5. The Glass Menagerie by Williams:
For having a title alluding to something fragile and unsubstantiative, is incredibly full of themes and ideas, and likewise, for a play with three leads and one supporting character making up the cast, Williams makes it each one of those characters, even the supporting one, really memorable. Tom Wingfield, sister Laura, mother Amanda, and the Gentleman Caller--and that's IT, and yet each stick out in your mind, play a specific role, and what's interesting and perhaps one of the greatest strengths of the play, the audience doesn't identify with just one or two of them, but ALL FO THEM in some capacity. We feel for Tom, stuck in a dead-end factory job that leaves him utterly dissatisfied with life as he works long hours at a menial post just to make ends meet when he is, in fact, teeming with artistic talent and wants nothing more than to travel and be free of his surroundings. We feel for Laura, so shy and prone to severe anexiety that it really is, for her, almost a debilitating disease, getting sick and terrified at even the idea of having to type a certain amount of words in a moment, and with her mother and Tom's strong personalities dominating the household she's left to her titular glass menagerie of glass figurines, playing out the life in quiet fantasy she can't lead in reality. We feel for Amanda, a Southern belle in her day and exceedingly popular, once so beautiful and wioth so many suitors, so many offers in life, who now finds herself living in a miserable life with her chosen suitor--her chosen path--deserting her and left only with memories of a time gone by and the hopes she can live vicariously through a daughter that couldn't be less suited to her ideals, even less so in a world so changed and removed from the world and time she's trying to hold onto and relive. Even the Gentleman Caller, even someone who has a comparatively short amount of stage time and far fewer lines than the other three, even HE we can somewhat feel for as he's an outsider dragged into an uncomfortable household that, upon his visit, becomes even more so, and appropriately enough given the title, as careful as he wants to let the hopes of Amanda and Laura down, he knows he can't do it without shattering said hopes. There's a LOT of great symbolsim in this play, in a lot of Williams' plays, but especially this one, and the glass menagerie ITSELF, given the conext of Amanda's fixation on the rose-colored past, Tom's preoccupation with the movies to vicariously view the kinds of adventures he most dearly wants to lead and yet never can, and Laura's very nature, the menagerie itself is in my opinion Williams' best use of symbolism in ANY of his plays and one of the best uses of symbolism PERIOD in the 20th century. All of THAT and so much more--from a play with three main characters and one supporting man. So much in seemingly so little. All of this is more than enough to land the play on my Top 10 list, but it's the ENDING that takes it all the way up to #5--it's another one I dare not spoil, but suffice it to say that, true to the play, it comes like absoulte LIGHTNING...when I first read this play I was really thinking "When is the dramatic turn coming?" and then it hits in an absolutely spectacularly-devestating fashion. It IS so devestating, and what makes it even more so is that it comes so late in the play, at the very end, and so while the action alone is enough to be highly tragic, its made even more so by the fact there's practically no falling action or recovery time afterward--it happens, it shatters the characters' lives, and neither they nor the audience are left with any time to pick up the pieces.
4. Man and Superman by Shaw:
This is the sort of play that only gets better the more you know and the more you read and the more you LIVE. It's one of if not THE most actively-engaging play I've ever seen; you simply are forced to think while everything's going on, and what's more is you're forced to think fast, becuase the characters sure do, and to have any hope of understanding the play--and sometimes even just the basics of what's going on--you have to keep up with the frentic pace the characters set. To put it another way, if we were to think of the great pieces of literature as great musical pieces, this would be the literary equivalent of the incredibly-fast, incredibly-complex "Largo al factotum" from "The Barber of Seville." Even THAT, however, isn't enough for this work difficulty-wise, as not only does it have to move lightning-fast and force the audience to be extremely active and engaged, it is a LONG work, and I mean LONG--four acts, each an hour each, and that's with a frentic, Figaro-esque pace, any slower or more tame and this piece carries on even longer. As a result this is, without a doubt, the most fatiguing piece on my list to take in; most plays on this list, while you certainly can and really should actively be engaged with them, will let you get by--albeit with a lesser experience--if you want to be a bit passive in your viewing. Not this work. You either are ready to keep up with Shaw or Shaw leaves you in the dust and NEVER offers a hand up or a chance to catch your breath, so you need to be in great analytical and viewing condition. ;) What makes all of this work, however, and makes you WANT to try and keep up with the frentic pace, long running time, and densely-philosophical dialogue and subject material is the fact that if you DO not only do you feel great for doing so--really, it IS an accomplishment if you can keep up with this work--but the subject matter, dialogue, plot, and characters are all so intruiging you genuinely want to keep up with all of them. And what is that subject matter? Simply put--everything. This is one of those plays that seems to touch upon--or at least tries to touch upon--everything, which certainly contributes to it's complexity and pace and length; so much is talked about that the play goes on and on, and the rapidity with which the characters will switch from one topic to another is such that you're forced to process so much quickly. Marriage, love, politics, the nature of humanity, the meaning of life, heaven and hell, good and evil, perspectivism, societal pressures--that's just a sampling of the major topics that come up in this work. As with all the other plays on this list, the characters, too, stand out; Jack Tanner, Ann, and Ramsden are simply unforgettable, and for a paly so provocative, not only will you likely take sides, but in doing so you make something of a statement about what you believe, and the supporting cast keeps the play going until the play goes to hell--literally. The third act, when you take in the play with no foreknowledge of what's to come, comes as a complete and utter shock and a once difficult and complex play becomes hellish in the best possible meaning of that term. Acts I and II center around the goings on in a Victorian-era group of people in first England and then, when they hit the road, in the countryside. Act III, however, completely changes the play, without warning, as instead of the highly-realistic Victorian setting that was just starting to become familiar, the action shifts to a proto-existentialist version of Hell, and with the change in scenery comes a partial change in characters; just as we were beginning to get used to Jack and Ann's frantic pace of debate and become intrigued in Violet's affairs these characters disappear for an act while their ACTORS portay new, highly-representative characters in hell, from Don Juann to a memorialized officer to a proper Spanish lady to the Devil, and just as we were beginning to become accustomed to the realism of their situation and dialogue we get perhaps the most prolonged metaphysical debate in theatrical history. The entire play is littered with allusions to many authors, Shakespeare and Dante in particular, and then this third act ups that level of allusion even more and introduces more figures, going so far as to not only make mention of figures like Wagner and then even more frequent mention of Nietzsche--whose Ubermensch, translated here, as it often is, as "Superman," is referenced by the title of the work--and going so far as to treat both of them almost as characters in that while they never appear their "actions" in heaven and hell are referred to. An allusion to "Abandon all hope ye who enter here" from Dante's The Inferno only adds to this feeling that, indeed, this IS a theatrical version of Dante's Hell, but instead of the circles and gruesome punsihments a seemingly-sublime, happy life is found, setting the stage for so much of the philosophical debate on all of the above and more--"Don Juan in Hell," as it's often referred to, is RELENTLESS in its pacing and material, and is not only the longest act of the play, but is in fact so long it's sometimes performed by itself. In the performance history of the play it's this third act that's so often scrutinized, not just over the sheer amount of material discussed or how it so raidcally and abruptly yet geniusly departs from the plot of the play, but if it will even be performed at all becomes a question, as the other three acts are, by themselves, enough for a very long performance, and so leaving in this act, longer than each of the other three, makes the play almost Shakespearean or Greek in its length, and as the days of epic Greek plays or day-long Shakespearean performances are long gone it's this third act that's often cut, and it's one of the few times a cut really bothers me in a production; in all fairness almost all productions feature cuts in their source material as, again, otherwise it's simply too long for our age of short attention spans, but this is a case where cutting, even though not doing so makes the play almost absurdly-long by modern standards, is simply out of the question in my opinoon, as that third act adds so much weight in every way to the piece that cutting it reduces one of the most philosophic plays of all-time to a fair period piece that then becomes "just" about love and marriage. Those elements alone are enough to make the work good, but it's that third act and the fleshing out of all those other ideas that, otherwise, are left being discussed only superficially, that makes this piece a masterpiece, and in all honesty, if you cannot handle the length or depth or pace of the paly with that thrid act left in, chances are you're probably not ready to take on this work of nearly-unparalleled complexity and pace. It's more than a mere piece of literature or a play--it's an EXPERIENCE, and an intense one at that, and one that MUST be experienced in full to be properly appreciated.
3. Macbeth by Shakespeare:
If you don't know why I'd rank this play so high...you need to get your eyes checked (and Is this a DAGGER I see before me?!) ;)
2. Waiting For Godot by Sameul Beckett:
SEE this play, DON'T READ IT, at least not the first time you decide to experience it. As much as Shakespeare's palys are even better when seen and Ibsen's are rather dry just read, this is a play that absolutely needs to be seen because if you DON'T see it I'd argue you don't actually know the work, it depends that much upon your actually seeing it and there being actual actors to play the roles of Didi, Gogo, Pozzo, and Lucky and paly them well. As much as Man and Superman can be very existential-sounding at times and many other plays, including the oft-compared Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, have some great existential themes and ideas, the aformentioned R&G so much so it's really a second Godot mingled with the plot of the already-somewhat-existential Hamlet, this work is the theatrical BIBLE on existentialism and modern theatre. and if you have a questiuon as to why that might be, for a VERY short answer, take a good look at the last word of the title, how close that is to ANOTHER word, and the fact that this play was debuted in the post-WWII, post-Holocaust world. Waiting for...? And--spoiler alert--the fact that Mr. GODOT never comes...but always sends a messenger to tell Didi and Gogo he'll "definitely" come the next day, as hard as days are to distinguish for the pair, as their lives appear meaningless and that the two lack a distinct "self" about them for the most part, as they're really two halves of one whole and you have just the most basic and surface elements of what makes this play the product of the thought of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Camus, Sartre, and the other existentialist philosophers. What elevates Godot even more, however, on top of all that, is that fact that it's the paly that breaks nearly all the rules of storytelling and yet somehow emerges a masterpiece. There is no plot--two men wait for someone who never come and are met by a couple other men who are on their way to somewhere else. That's IT. In terms of a traditional plot, that's ALL there is to this work. There are only four characters, five if you count the messenger who comes in at the end of each act to give his two lines or so of dialogue. Of those four characters, only three speak with any sort of frequency, as Lucky speaks ONCE...and oh the things he has to say! If I ever do a Top 10 for monologues, Lucky's would have to rank highly on there as not only is it deep, hilarious, tragic, and philosophically puzzling all at the same time, it's the ONLY lines of dialogue the character gives the entire paly, and it comes about two thirds through the second act of a two-act play--there's been nearly an entire play's worth of buildup for this speech, and so when it finally comes out it carries even MORE weight, and what makes it all the harder is that it's supposed to be said lightning-fast...and so if you're watching the play for the first time and have no forewarning about this speeech coming you're most likely going to be caught completely offguard by it...if there were such a thing as a "drive-by monologuing" this would be it. Lucky is, in fact, one of the reasons this play needs to be scene--with the exception of that one long and incredibly-difficult monologue Lucky's a mute the entire play but his body language and actions onstage add so much to the piece that if it's not seen a good deal has been lost. As with other existential plays, like R&G and, to an extent, Man and Superman, symbolism is huge in Godot, as it can be argued that even the characters themselves are symbols. The rock, the tree, their bowler hats, Pozzo's props...everything has an existential meaning. Again, however, all of this takes place in a play with practically no plot, and yet for all of that it's incredibly hilarious in the vaudville-style of performance and at the same time incredibly tragic--Didi and Gogo are lost in life, they're miserable the way they are, they're trapped by their own incomplete nature, and even comment on this point, repeatedly trying to leave one another only to come rushing back and finding relief at the sight of the other...because as miserable as they might be together, wating for help that will never come, in a desolate, God-forsaken (perhaps LITERALLY God-foraken, if, again, the title is to be taken into account) wasteland, their only food radishes, their only way of apssing time attempting to sleep or to argue or to engage in such menial tasks as swapping hats or pulling off a boot, their only contact being two people who are of absolutely no help and yet they speak to each time just out of their sheer need to talk to someone else and make human contact...inspite of how bad all of THAT is, in their life waiting for Mr. Godot together, life seems even worse facing all that ALONE. Perhaps the most powerful part of the play and one of the reasons--all those incredibly symbolic, literary, and philosophical reasons already stated--it remains one of the most performed and poured over plays today is the fact that this is a very hard work to get a feeling about, and after seeing it for the first time there's a good chance you won't know HOW to feel about it. It's so hilarious and fantastic, the goings on so absurd--and yet that's also what makes it so tragic and chilling, that as absurd as the work SEEMS...how absurd and far from the truth is it REALLY? Sartre famously said "Hell is other people," and ironically enough it's the one person that never comes that makes Didi and Gogo's life a living hel and, as the second act indicates, very possibly a perpetual hell, and, perhaps most chilling of all, a hell that doesn't seem to have a way out. What if Didi and Gogo stopped waiting for Godot to come? They're so misrable and utterly lost in life without him, and only the hope they have each day that Godot WILL come each day and help them--though with what they admit they're not quite sure anymore, they think they might have forgotten and will need help remmebering what their problem even is in the first place--and without that hope life certainly seems hopeless for them...they CAN leave, CAN stop waiting for Godot, but their fear brings them back and so they ultimately CAN'T leave, and so even worse than a golden cage they're trapped in a cage with no bars or barriers but themselves, and they can't seperate as without each otehr they're left even more incomplete and unable to function; they're free as a bird and yet trapped as a rat. Even their attempts at suicide don't work, they're FORCED to live out this hell...and if Didi and Gogo can't break free of their hell which, it seems, they at least partially create for themselves, can we hope to escape our own demons, or are we doomed to wait out life, with each tomorrow and each hope proving empty and leading the next, enterance after entrance into a hell from which there is No Exit?
1. Hamlet by Shakespeare:
Given how much I've written for the OTHER plays on this list...suffice it to say a write up of even a few of the reasons why I'd rank Hamlet #1 would probably run as long as the rest of the entire list, and so I'll just leave it at that, with the Great Dane in the top slot, and "the rest is silence."