Book picks similar to
Some Girl(s) by Neil LaBute
plays
theatre
drama
theater
Punk Rock
Simon Stephens - 2009
Contemporary and unnerving the story explores the pressures of teenage life as as group of educated, intelligent young people begin to plan for college and the rest of their lives with the step-by-step, dislocated, latent violence simmering under the surface of success revealed.
Becky Shaw
Gina Gionfriddo - 2010
Your husband is not the Red Cross. The last time he started consoling a cute, suicidal chick, he married her. ""Becky Shaw" is an amusing and cleverly constructed comedy about ambition, the cost of being truthful, and the perils of a blind date. The fast and funny dialogue navigates between five distinctively perverse and disingenuously dysfunctional characters.The plot is as follows: from the moment that Becky arrives overdressed for her blind date with straight-talking Max, it's clear the evening won't go to plan. In the immediate fallout, Becky becomes an object of devotion for her boss Andrew, who appears to have a fetish for vulnerable women. In turn Andrew's wife Suzanna turns to her step-brother Max for comfort, and their mutual desire begins to resurface.Gina Gionfriddo's masterful play is a biting American comedy with sharp, witty dialogue and a carefully crafted yet unforced story arc. Character-driven, "Becky Shaw" is a comic tale of tangled love lives and a subtle but acerbic comedy of manners.
Blithe Spirit
Noël Coward - 1941
Written in 1941, Blithe Spirit remained the longest-running comedy in British Theatre for years. Plotted around the central role of one of Coward's best loved characters, a medium Madame Arcati (originally played by Margaret Rutherford). Coward's play is a spirited charade about a man with 2 wives, one dead and another alive.
An Ideal Husband
Oscar Wilde - 1893
His witty, clever drama, populated by brilliant talkers skilled in the art of riposte and paradox, are still staples of the theatrical repertoire.An Ideal Husband revolves around a blackmail scheme that forces a married couple to reexamine their moral standards — providing, along the way, a wry commentary on the rarity of politicians who can claim to be ethically pure. A supporting cast of young lovers, society matrons, an overbearing father, and a formidable femme fatale continually exchange sparkling repartee, keeping the play moving at a lively pace.Like most of Wilde's plays, this scintillating drawing-room comedy is wise, well-constructed, and deeply satisfying. An instant success at its 1895 debut, the play continues to delight audiences over one hundred years later. An Ideal Husband is a must-read for Wilde fans, students of English literature, and anyone delighted by wit, urbanity, and timeless sophistication.
The Hot L Baltimore
Lanford Wilson - 1973
As the action unfolds, the residents, ranging from young to old, from the defiant to the resigned, meet and talk and interact with each other during the course of one day. The drama is of passing events in their lives, of everyday encounters and of the human comedy, with conversations often overlapping into a contrapuntal musical flow. In the resulting mosaic each character emerges clearly and perceptively defined, and the sum total of what they are-or wish they were-becomes a poignant, powerful call to America to recover lost values and to restore itself in its own and the world's eyes.
The Memory of Water - Acting Edition
Shelagh Stephenson - 1996
The Globe and Mail describes THE MEMORY OF WATER as "both gloriously funny and deeply felt Indeed, THE MEMORY OF WATER is so funny that it appears at first to be pure black comedy, with the newly bereaved sisters indulging wildly in witty bickering and dope-induced dress-ups Their quarrels over the fu-neral arrangements, their well-worn family roles, their unsatisfactory men and their mixed memories of a highly feminine working-class mother are hilarious In THE MEMORY OF WATER, [Shelagh Stephenson] skillfully charts the joyous and painful territory of family relationships with insight and compassion."
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.
Stupid Fucking Bird
Aaron Posner - 2016
A nubile young actress wrestles with an aging Hollywood star for the affections of a renowned novelist. And everyone discovers just how disappointing love, art, and growing up can be. In this irreverent, contemporary, and very funny remix of Chekhov’s The Seagull, Aaron Posner stages a timeless battle between young and old, past and present, in search of the true meaning of it all. Original songs composed by James Sugg draw the famously subtextual inner thoughts of Chekhov’s characters explicitly to the surface. STUPID FUCKING BIRD will tickle, tantalize, and incite you to consider how art, love, and revolution fuel your own pursuit of happiness.
Red Light Winter
Adam Rapp - 2005
Escaping their lives in Manhattan, former college buddies Matt and Davis take off to the Netherlands and find themselves thrown into a bizarre love triangle with a beautiful young prostitute named Christina. But the romance they find in Europe is eventually overshadowed by the truth they discover at home. Written with an unflinching poetic beauty, Red Light Winter is a play of sexual intrigue that explores the myriad and misguided ways we seek to fill the empty spaces inside us.