You might wish to check into German Expressionist theater. Beside Brecht there's Wedekind's Lulu plays, Max Frisch's Firebugs, and Friederich Durrenmatt's The Visit and The Physicists.
You might wish to check into German Expressionist theater. Beside Brecht there's Wedekind's Lulu plays, Max Frisch's Firebugs, and Friederich Durrenmatt's The Visit and The Physicists.
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I've had a little foray into it but mainly it's been American Expressionist theatre for meOriginally Posted by stlukesguild
Has anyone read Václav Havel?
I don't think I've heard of Havel actually.
He's a Czech playwright who belongs to the tradition of the theater of the absurd. His plays are hilarious satires about state bureaucracy and conformism; he was several times arrested. He was one of the authors of Charter 77, and after the fall of communism in Czechslovakia he became president. He was also president of the Czech Republic.
He's the author of plays like The Garden Party and The Memorandum. You should look him up, he's very good.
Although I'm not one to promote my own blog, I have written a review of Havel's play, Audience, that you may find interesting.
Last edited by Heteronym; 06-22-2011 at 12:04 PM.
Dürrenmatt is on my list too.
Ionesco can be fun.
Right now in Lincoln Center, NYC, over from England is an extraordinary play (spectacle) -- War Horse. Film version apparently coming out at the end of the year - Spielberg. But the theater experience of it is unmatched. "Equus" (by Peter Shaeffer -check spelling -also should be on your list) on steriods.
Equus on steroids? Apart from the horses, both plays seem quite different. One is a psycho-sexual thriller/drama about a boy who blinds horses; the other is about war.
And yes, Ionesco is very funny. I must read more by him.
Has anyone read Luigi Pirandello?
Only Six Characters in Search of An Author, which I really enjoyed.
Has anyone ever read the Austrian playwright Karl Kraus' play Die letzten Tage der Menschheit? I don't think it's ever been translated into English, but perhaps some of our German-speaking members are familiar with it?
I'm thinking about reading it in Portuguese, of course.
I think you may have missed Maeterlinck, unless my eyes are deceiving me. Echegaray may deserve a mention too.
"The role of the artist is to ask questions, not answer them."
— Chekhov
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