Book picks similar to
Dinner with Friends by Donald Margulies
plays
drama
theatre
theater
The Normal Heart
Larry Kramer - 1985
It tells the story of very private lives caught up in the heartrendering ordeal of suffering and doom - an ordeal that was largely ignored for reasons of politics and majority morality.Filled with power, anger, and intelligence, Larry Kramer's riveting play dramatizes what actualy happened from the time of the disease's discovery to the present, and points a moral j'accuse in many directions. His passionate indictment of government, the media, and the public for refusing to deal with a national plague is electrifying theater - a play that finally breaks through the conspiracy of silence with a shout of stunning impact. As Douglas Watt summed it up in his review for the New York Daily News,THE NORMAL HEART is "an angry, unremitting and gripping piece of political theater. You are bound to come away moved."
The Cherry Orchard
Anton Chekhov - 1903
Their estate is hopelessly in debt: urged to cut down their beautiful cherry orchard and sell the land for holiday cottages, they struggle to act decisively. Tom Murphy's fine vernacular version allows us to re-imagine the events of the play in the last days of Anglo-Irish colonialism. It gives this great play vivid new life within our own history and social consciousness.
Love Letters
A.R. Gurney - 1989
Romantically attached, they continue to exchange letters through the boarding school and college years—where Andy goes on to excel at Yale and law school, while Melissa flunks out of a series of "good schools." While Andy is off at war Melissa marries, but her attachment to Andy remains strong and she continues to keep in touch as he marries, becomes a successful attorney, gets involved in politics and, eventually, is elected to the U.S. Senate. Meanwhile, her marriage in tatters, Melissa dabbles in art and gigolos, drinks more than she should, and becomes estranged from her children. Eventually she and Andy do become involved in a brief affair, but it is really too late for both of them. However Andy's last letter, written to her mother after Melissa's untimely death, makes it eloquently clear how much they really meant, and gave to, each other over the years—physically apart, perhaps, but spiritually as close as only true lovers can be.
The Great God Pan
Amy Herzog - 2013
Ms. Herzog writes with keen sensitivity to the complex weave of feelings embedded in all human relationships, with particular attention to the way we tiptoe around areas of radioactive emotion." - New York Times"Whatever the ideal contemporary American drama is, it has to look a lot like The Great God Pan. It is provocative and subtle, slowly, carefully revelatory, sweetly moving, thought-provoking, funny and insightful." - New York Observer"An intelligent, delicately articulate writer." - Village Voice"A moving and unsettling look at the nature of identity and the vagaries of memory. With subtlety and compassion, Herzog contemplates how well we can really know ourselves." - BackstageJamie's life in Brooklyn seems just fine: a beautiful girlfriend, a burgeoning journalism career, and parents who live just far enough away. But when a possible childhood trauma comes to light, lives are thrown into a tailspin. Unsettling and deeply compassionate, The Great God Pan tells the intimate tale of what is lost and won when a hidden truth is suddenly revealed.Amy Herzog's plays include 4000 Miles (Pulitzer Prize finalist), After the Revolution and Belleville. Ms. Herzog is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Whiting Writers' Award, an Obie Award and the Helen Merrill Award for Aspiring Playwrights.
The Shadow Box
Michael Cristofer - 1976
The three are attended and visited by family and close friends: Agnes and her mother Felicity, estranged further by the latter's dementia; Brian and Beverly whose martial complications are exacerbated by Brian's new lover, Mark; and Joe and Maggie, unready for the strain of Joe's impending death and it's effect on their teenage son.
Fat Pig
Neil LaBute - 2004
Slob. Pig. How many insults can you hear before you have to stand up and defend the woman you love? Tom faces just that question when he falls for Helen, a bright, funny, sexy young woman who happens to be plus sized-and then some. Forced to explain his new relationship to his shallow (although shockingly funny) friends, finally he comes to terms with his own preconceptions of the importance of conventional good looks. Neil LaBute's sharply drawn play not only critiques our slavish adherence to Hollywood ideals of beauty but boldy questions our own ability to change what we dislike about ourselves.
Reckless - Acting Edition
Craig Lucas - 1985
She meets and joins up with Lloyd Bophtelophti, a true "original" who has changed his name to avoid alimony payments and who now lives with a paraplegic named Pootie (who also pretends to be deaf in order to get double disability). Thus begins a series of picaresque escapades involving numerous psychiatrists, a TV game show, and, eventually, an ill-fated reunion with her husband. Filled with bizarre characters and events, the play reflects the fractured lifestyles which have become the norm for so many in our tenuous times.
Angels in America
Tony Kushner - 1993
Prior is a man living with AIDS whose lover Louis has left him and become involved with Joe, an ex-Mormon and political conservative whose wife, Harper, is slowly having a nervous breakdown. These stories are contrasted with that of Roy Cohn (a fictional re-creation of the infamous American conservative ideologue who died of AIDS in 1986) and his attempts to remain in the closet while trying to find some sort of personal salvation in his beliefs.
Love's Labour's Lost
William Shakespeare
Ferdinand, the king of Navarre, insists that his court join him in a pledge to undertake a strict regimen of study and celibacy. The grudging compliance of three noblemen is sorely tested — as is the king's own resolve — with the arrival of a French princess and a trio of comedy attendants.
Twelve Angry Men
Reginald Rose - 1954
legal system. The play centers on Juror Eight, who is at first the sole holdout in an 11-1 guilty vote. Eight sets his sights not on proving the other jurors wrong but rather on getting them to look at the situation in a clear-eyed way not affected by their personal prejudices or biases. Reginald Rose deliberately and carefully peels away the layers of artifice from the men and allows a fuller picture to form of them—and of America, at its best and worst. After the critically acclaimed teleplay aired in 1954, this landmark American drama went on to become a cinematic masterpiece in 1957 starring Henry Fonda, for which Rose wrote the adaptation. More recently, Twelve Angry Men had a successful, and award-winning, run on Broadway.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Saint Joan
George Bernard Shaw - 1923
With SAINT JOAN (1923) Shaw reached the height of his fame and Joan is one of his finest creations; forceful, vital, and rebelling against the values that surround her. The play distils Shaw's views on the subjects of politics, religion and creative evolution.
Aunt Dan and Lemon
Wallace Shawn - 1985
Lemon tells the audience about the overwhelming influence in her life of her parents' friend "Aunt Dan," an eccentric, passionate professor whose stories and seductive opinions enthrall Lemon from the time she is a young girl. The relationship that develops between Lemon and Aunt Dan and the conversations that went on in a small house on the bottom of an English garden form the focus of this play about political orientation and the allure of certain ideas-even if they lead to murder. A forceful play exposing the banality of society's evil, Aunt Dan & Lemon explores the ease with which good and bad become reconciled in the human mind.