Best of
Plays

1978

Torch Song Trilogy


Harvey Fierstein - 1978
    The four hour-plus play begins with a soliloquy in which he explains his cynical disillusionment with love.Each act focuses on a different phase in Arnold's life. In the first, Arnold meets Ed, who is uncomfortable with his bisexuality. In the second, one year later, Arnold meets Alan, and the two settle down into a blissful existence that includes plans to adopt a child, until tragedy strikes. In the third, several years later, Arnold is a single father raising gay teenager David. Arnold is forced to deal with his mother's intolerance and disrespect when she visits from Florida.

Deathtrap


Ira Levin - 1978
    A possible break in his fortunes occurs when he receives a script from a student in the seminar he has been conducting at a nearby college a thriller which Sidney recognizes immediately as a potential Broadway hit. Sidney's plan, which he devises with his wife's help, is to offer collaboration to the student, an idea which the younger man quickly accepts. Thereafter suspense mounts steadily as the plot begins to twist and turn with devilish cleverness, and with such an abundance of thrills and laughter, that audiences will be held enthralled until the final, startling moments of the play.

Betrayal


Harold Pinter - 1978
    The play begins in 1977, with a meeting between adulterous lovers, Emma and Jerry, two years after their affair has ended. During the nine scenes of the play, we move back in time, through the states of their affair, with the play ending in the house of Emma and Robert, her husband, who is Jerry's best friend.The classic dramatic scenario of the love triangle is manifest in a mediation on the themes of marital infidelity, duplicity, and self-deception. Pinter writes a world that simultaneously glorifies and debases love.

Hamletmachine and Other Texts for the Stage


Heiner Müller - 1978
    Includes: Hamletmachine, Correction, The Task, Quartet, Despoiled Shore, and Gundling's Life. One of the most original theatrical minds of our time, Müller, who resided in East Berlin before his death in 1995, was a frequent collaborator of Robert Wilson.

The Phantom of the Open Hearth: A Film for Television Co-Ordinated by Leigh Brown


Jean Shepherd - 1978
    

Golda's Balcony


William Gibson - 1978
    Now her life has been transformed into a one-woman play of overwhelming power and triumph by William Gibson, author of The Miracle Worker. Golda's Balcony earned actress Tovah Feldshuh a 2003 Drama Desk award. "Enlightening ... Now, hearing from someone who was there at the birth of the country, who sacrificed to make that happen, helps remind us where the Middle East standoff came from and why it never seems to end." - The New York Times "A valentine to the famously tough prime minister." - New York Post

The Cake Man


Robert J. Merritt - 1978
    Landmark Aboriginal Australian play which premiered in 1975, examining the mistreatment of Indigenous Australians by the whites, and the challenges to the dignity and self-respect of the Indigenous male.

Zelda: Frontier Life in America: A Fantasy in Three Parts


Kaye McDonough - 1978
    

Street: A Play


Joan Aiken - 1978
    A two act farce about a pair of young lovers who live in an English village on opposite sides of a heavily trafficked superhighway.

America Hurrah and Other Plays


Jean-Claude van Itallie - 1978
    A keen deconstruction of American popular culture, the America Hurrah triptych served notice that here was a major new dramatic voice. America Hurrah and Other Plays is a definitive collection of the work of a major American playwright, with such works as Bag Lady, written in the voice of a deceptively insightful homeless woman; The Serpent, a fanciful interpretation of the story of Adam and Eve; The Traveller, which depicts a charismatic and brilliant artist recovering from a stroke; and van Itallie's dazzling play based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

Runaways


Elizabeth Swados - 1978
    Initially created from interviews with homeless children and those in orphanages, Liz Swados' unique piece weaves songs about personal struggle and the world at large through the eyes of youth in New York City in the '70s. The show blends different musical styles, from pop to hip-hop and jazz to reggae, while asking why children can't remain children.The licensed version of Runaways reflects the version performed by Encores in 2016.