In your opinion who is the greatest playwright of the 20th century?

[Arso]

Posted: 9/22/16 at 9:29pm

 I know its quite a hard question, but you have to pick one person..from Arthur Miller, Eugene O'Neil, August Wilson, Harold Pinter, Beckett etc. etc.etc. etc. so on and so on

playwrights that tip toe between 19th/20th century are also allowed as answers like for example G.B Shaw

Who is your choice?

Updated On: 9/22/16 at 09:29 PM

[The Distinctive Baritone]

Posted: 9/22/16 at 11:20pm

I don't think it's possible to answer that question, but in terms of their influence and which plays have stood the test of time...in (general) order of appearance:

Anton Chekov

Henrik Ibsen

George Bernard Shaw

Eugene O'Neill

Tennessee Williams

Samuel Beckett

Arthur Miller

Harold Pinter

Edward Albee

David Mamet

August Wilson

Neil LaBute (sorta)

Martin McDonah (crossover into early 2000's)

 

That should about cover it.

EDIT: I just realized all these playwrights are men. Sad.

ANOTHER EDIT: I somehow forgot to include Williams.

Also, Carol Churchill...although Top Girls and Cloud Nine are her only famous ones I think.

Updated On: 9/23/16 at 11:20 PM

[JPeterman]

Posted: 9/22/16 at 11:23pm

Arthur Miller

[HogansHero]

Posted: 9/22/16 at 11:25pm

I agree the question and any answer is meaningless but it's kinda amusing that the long lost above is missing Williams. 

[The Distinctive Baritone]

Posted: 9/22/16 at 11:27pm

Oh yeah...that guy. He wrote that play about depressed Southerners, right?

[Arso]

Posted: 9/22/16 at 11:28pm

edit: double post

Updated On: 9/22/16 at 11:28 PM

[Arso]

Posted: 9/22/16 at 11:29pm

Of course, its quite a subjective question, but I didn't want to ask who your favorite playwright is, but "greatest" who do you think has the greatest legacy of all 20th century playwrights based on the quality of their work.

I mean my favorite author is James Joyce, but i think Proust was the "greatest" writer of the 20th century, again subjective

[Oak2]

Posted: 9/22/16 at 11:31pm

Is Neil Simon not considered a great playwright? I remember being obsessed with his stuff and reading the scripts to all his plays in a marathon back when I was in school...and I feel he has at least a few works that stand out and are recognizable even to people who don't watch plays.

[Sally Durant Plummer]

Posted: 9/22/16 at 11:36pm

Mr. Williams is my favorite playwright of all time. The delicacy and lyrical genius of his prose, as well as his deeply rich and vibrant characters made him a wonderfully singular voice. But the fact that he was able to deal with taboo subject matter - homosexuality, feminism, ect. and acts of horrific violence (castration, cannibalism) without shattering the poetic world he created is a testament to his greatness. Anyone who can write A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie, Cat On a Hot Tin Roof, Sweet Bird of Youth, Suddenly Last Summer, Summer and Smoke, The Rose Tattoo, and The Night of the Iguana (to name only a few!) can not go unnoticed as one of the great playwrights of any generation. And even his later work, as controversial as it may be, show that his plays were not driven for praise, but for his own deeper exploration of the genre. He never gave up, even with 20 years of flops. My love for his work continues to grow, and I cannot wait until his lesser-known shows return to Broadway and astound theatre goers all over again.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 9/22/16 at 11:54pm

On a whole, I'd say Tennessee Williams. Again, this is a personal choice to everyone but as far as I'm concerned there is no greater playwright than him. Even his lesser works are ten times greater than some of the most popular plays ever written by other people.

 

But having said that, I think the single greatest play of the twentieth century is THE CRUCIBLE. So it's a tough question to answer. 

[Arso]

Posted: 9/23/16 at 12:04am

Jordan Catalano said: "On a whole, I'd say Tennessee Williams. Again, this is a personal choice to everyone but as far as I'm concerned there is no greater playwright than him. Even his lesser works are ten times greater than some of the most popular plays ever written by other people.

 

But having said that, I think the single greatest play of the twentieth century is THE CRUCIBLE. So it's a tough question to answer. 

 

"

Crucible over Death of a Salesman..interesting, very interesting :)

[Arso]

Posted: 9/23/16 at 12:05am

I was expecting alot of answers of this man to be honest, but I can see where many think Beckett might be to elitist, sort of like T.S Eliot and poetry

[The Distinctive Baritone]

Posted: 9/23/16 at 1:33am

To try to actually answer the question, I'd have to look at the greatest plays:

Death of a Salesman

A Streetcar Named Desire

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

 

Miller-Williams-Albee three way tie?

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 9/23/16 at 10:54am

Strindberg.

Posted: 9/23/16 at 10:55am

In my opinion it is Arthur Miller.

[HogansHero]

Posted: 9/23/16 at 11:19am

Arso said: "Of course, its quite a subjective question, but I didn't want to ask who your favorite playwright is, but "greatest" who do you think has the greatest legacy of all 20th century playwrights based on the quality of their work."

This shifts the question a bit because "quality" is even less meaningfully demonstrable that "greatness." And  think adding "legacy" mucks things up even more because the purely 20th C. writers are at a disadvantage vis-a-vis the ones straddling the earlier century. I do not think we know how "understood" these playwrights will be after we are all gone-not just because some of these great plays tell stories arising out of a present (or at least present consciousness) setting but also because they feed a certain zeitgeist that may or may not persist. 

[Kad]

Posted: 9/23/16 at 11:35am

Do you measure greatest by just the highpoints of a career, or the overall body of work? The more prolific of these playwrights have anywhere from one to a few plays I would consider to be masterpieces, but then the rest of the body work runs the gambit on quality.

[Jarethan]

Posted: 9/23/16 at 11:39am

The Distinctive Baritone said: "I don't think it's possible to answer that question, but in terms of their influence and which plays have stood the test of time...in (general) order of appearance:

Anton Chekov

Henrik Ibsen

George Bernard Shaw

Eugene O'Neill

Samuel Beckett

Arthur Miller

Harold Pinter

Edward Albee

David Mamet

August Wilson

Neil LaBute (sorta)

Martin McDonah (crossover into early 2000's)

 

That should about cover it.

EDIT: I just realized all these playwrights are men. Sad.

 

You listed all these people and never bothered to include Tennessee Williams.  Is this intentional or do you really think Neil LaBute and David Mamet have a more significant portfolio of works than him?  

I have personal issues with several of the others, e.g., Beckett is to me pretentious, Pinter is to me a bore, and I think Shaw reads better than seeing on stage, but I can see that they would be reasonable choices .  But to omit Williams seems and include Mamet and LaBute????????????

If not obvious, my choice would be Williams.  I guess O'Neill would be next, although he does not have a play that I think couldn't benefit from some judicious editing.

I hope that McDonough continues to write plays on par with Leenane, Pillowman, Inishnaan, Lieutenant, and of course In Bruges.  He would be high on the list.

 

[The Distinctive Baritone]

Posted: 9/23/16 at 11:46am

I left off Williams by accident. Obviously he is one of the greatest playwrights of the past century and I teach his plays to my students.

[Kad]

Posted: 9/23/16 at 11:47am

I personally wouldn't include  Mamet on a list of greatest playwrights... and certainly not Labute, who, my personal opinion of his work aside (spoiler: I'm not a fan), is far too recent to assess in such a way. I don't think their works are especially timeless, and even their best works aren't even close to being masterpieces in the way Williams, Miller, Albee, or O'Neill's greatest works are.

[jbird5]

Posted: 9/23/16 at 1:21pm

Alan Ayckbourn?

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 9/23/16 at 2:14pm

Neil LaBute (sorta)

No.  Not even sorta.  Just flat-out NO.

[UncleCharlie]

Posted: 9/23/16 at 2:41pm

An as, if not more interesting question would be "what is the greatest playwriting achievement of the 20th century". For my money, it is August Wilson's Pittsburgh/century cycle of 10 plays (and yes, I know the final 2 were written during the first few years of the 21st century).

10 complete plays each focusing on and capturing the feel and time of a different decade with characters weaved throughout the years. Not a single clinker among the 10, half of them either winning or finalists for the Pulitzer. It's a towering achievement. I'm not sure we'll ever see anything like that done again.

[TNick926]

Posted: 9/23/16 at 2:51pm

Oak2 said: "Is Neil Simon not considered a great playwright? I remember being obsessed with his stuff and reading the scripts to all his plays in a marathon back when I was in school...and I feel he has at least a few works that stand out and are recognizable even to people who don't watch plays.

I've loved many Neil Simon plays, but most don't age well (the B/B/B trilogy being an exception, maybe)...won't stand the test of time like those listed above.  If the question was "most successful" playwright of the 20th century, he'd win hands down!  And quite a few hit movies as well!

"

 

[Scarywarhol]

Posted: 9/23/16 at 3:25pm

I'm not going to argue that Lillian Hellman, Caryl Churchill, Lorraine Hansbury, or Sarah Kane are up there with Tennessee.

 

But I'm name-dropping them because I feel like there are plenty of woman playwrights who deserve a mention before we get to David Mamet-level and Neil LaBute-level playwrights. 

Updated On: 9/23/16 at 03:25 PM