Plays You Love That Not Many Other People Have Heard Of- Page 2
Plays You Love That Not Many Other People Have Heard Of
#25re: Plays You Love That Not Many Other People Have Heard Of
Posted: 1/9/07 at 1:28am
Not that it's exactly a forgotten play, but Brain Friel's "Philadelphia, Here I Come" is a fabulous, almost poetic play with some true heartbreak in it.
And speaking of Michael Frayn, his play "Benefactors" should have had a longer life, but it came right after "Noises Off" and the fact that it was so different from "Noises" probably hurt it.
Another play that should be investigated by theater groups is Terence McNally's infamous "And Things That Go Bump In The Night". O.k., it is very, very, very much a play of it's time (the mid-sixties) and it is not a great play. When I read read it I thought that if a not great play like "Agnes of God" could run for years, why couldn't have this one?
#26re: Plays You Love That Not Many Other People Have Heard Of
Posted: 1/9/07 at 3:54am
I used to love The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail, but I haven't read it in years and have never seen it
I didn't see Benefactors, I've only read it and I love it. But I remember that the reason I didn't see it was that it had terrible word of mouth.
And I wonder if another reason it didn't run long was that lots of people didn't really like Noises Off. You'd think that a comedy that got such great reviews would have run longer. Both London productions were much more successful than their Broadway counterparts. Of course, part of the reason why the last Broadway production was not more successful is that lots of people thought it wasn't a very good production. But I also think that the second act descends into the kind of silly slapstick that Americans don't always respond to. I don't like that second act myself. And, of course, those British sex farces that the play parodies are just not well-known here.
A director friend of mine thinks that theatre people love Noises Off a lot more than the average theatregoer does.
Margo, although it's true that a lot of those Guare plays have been given major productions in New York in the last 10 years or so (which was why I wrote "though it's arguable that some of those are pretty well-known"), I tend to think that they're still not well-known.
And, unfortunately, for one reason or another he has revised several of them and always for the worse, IMO.
I think that production of Play Yourself was the play's first production anywhere. It was one of several Kondoleon plays unproduced when he died and it took some time to get done. It's a beauty and Seldes and Ann Guilbert gave brilliant performances that should have won, or at least been nominated for, every award in the books. But it opened in June and I think was forgotten by awards season.
The Rehearsal is a marvelous play as well. It was revived by the Roundabout a few years ago but the production was not very well received.
LYNX71
Understudy Joined: 5/12/03
#27re: Plays You Love That Not Many Other People Have Heard Of
Posted: 1/9/07 at 9:19amWoody Allen's GOD
MargoChanning
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/5/04
#28re: Plays You Love That Not Many Other People Have Heard Of
Posted: 1/9/07 at 11:41am
What I remember about Benefactors is its somber, almost-Chekhovian tone (especially in comparison to the high farce of Noises Off) and the performances of the stellar Broadway cast (Waterston, Glenn Close, a terrific Mary Beth Hurt and Simon Jones). It's themes about the loss of idealism -- in one's relationships as well as in one's world view -- as a person moves into middle age certainly still resonates, making the play an ideal candidate for a regional theatre looking for a little done contemporary mature adult comedy/drama to program for their season.
In some ways, it reminds me of another "forgotten" domestic comedy/drama (that might be worth reviving somewhere), Alan Aykbourne's Absent Friends, a dark farce about a middle aged people in emotional crisis in the suburbs (that I remember seeing the US premiere of in the mid-70s at the Kennedy Center).
dramaqueen2
Broadway Legend Joined: 1/23/05
#29re: Plays You Love That Not Many Other People Have Heard Of
Posted: 1/9/07 at 12:03pmi don't know how many people have heard of it, but.. the one act "sure thing," it's delightfully funny. loved it.
#30re: Plays You Love That Not Many Other People Have Heard Of
Posted: 1/9/07 at 12:38pm
The truly odd works of Lauri Bortz.
lauribortz.com
Unknown User
Joined: 12/31/69
#31re: Plays You Love That Not Many Other People Have Heard Of
Posted: 1/9/07 at 2:03pmMaid in the Ozarks
daredevil
Featured Actor Joined: 8/17/05
#32re: Plays You Love That Not Many Other People Have Heard Of
Posted: 1/9/07 at 2:11pm
A Prayer For My Daughter, by Thomas Babe
Gus and Al by Albert Innaurato
The Mask and the Face by Chiarelli (a contemporary of Pirandello's)
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