Ms. Salva's online Classroom
Drama Reading List
While plays are meant to be seen, there's something special in reading the scripts as well.
Here are some of my favorite plays to see and read. ~ Ms. S
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
"I believe that the reader will discover here the essential nature of one of the strangest and most awful chapters in human history," Arthur Miller wrote of his classic play about the witch-hunts and trials in seventeenth-century Salem, Massachusetts. Based on historical people and real events, Miller's drama is a searing portrait of a community engulfed by hysteria. In the rigid theocracy of Salem, rumors that women are practicing witchcraft galvanize the town's most basic fears and suspicions; and when a young girl accuses Elizabeth Proctor of being a witch, self-righteous church leaders and townspeople insist that Elizabeth be brought to trial. The ruthlessness of the prosecutors and the eagerness of neighbor to testify against neighbor brilliantly illuminate the destructive power of socially sanctioned violence.
Written in 1953, The Crucible is a mirror Miller uses to reflect the anti-communist hysteria inspired by Senator Joseph McCarthy's "witch-hunts" in the United States. Within the text itself, Miller contemplates the parallels, writing, "Political opposition... is given an inhumane overlay, which then justifies the abrogation of all normally applied customs of civilized behavior. A political policy is equated with moral right, and opposition to it with diabolical malevolence."
The Night of the Iguana
by Tennessee Williams
In 1940's Mexico, an ex-minister, the Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon, has been locked out of his church after characterizing the image of God as a "senile delinquent" during one of his sermons. He starts working for a tour company and takes a group of church ladies to a shabby hotel run by his friend Maxine.
On the verge of another nervous breakdown, Shannon tries to manage his tour party, who have turned against him for entering into sexual relations with a young girl who has accompanied the tour.
Shannon forms a strong bond with the newly arrived painter, Hannah Jelkes, and her aging grandfather much to Maxine's dismay. But Shannon's emotional stability is already threadbare and it seems nothing will distract him from his ongoing fight with God.
From left to right: Tim Garrity as Hamm and Michael Toland as Clov.
Endgame by Samuel Beckett
The sky is gray. The sea is gray. Time is gray. The world has just about ended and only Hamm, his servant Clov, and Hamm's aging, legless parents Nell and Nagg are there to watch it go. Hamm is blind and confined to a wheelchair while his servant Clov cannot sit. Nell and Nagg, being legless, live in trash bins off to the side of the room and occasionally appear to remember their glory days and scratch their backs. The highlight of their day is that Clov gets a flea in his pants.
British absurdist playwright Samuel Beckett is famous for repetition, nonsense and parallels. One of the most challenging pieces of theatre, Endgame is also possibly one of the most human even though its characters are starved of their humanity. It is also important to note that while reading this play, there is no intermission.
Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead by Bert V. Royal
Have you ever wondered what happened to the Peanuts gang when they became teenagers? Bert V. Royal did and decided to give every character a messed up life.
C.B.'s dog has just died from rabies and no one except his overly dramatic sister attends the funeral. His best friend Van was too busy getting high, his girlfriend was recently committed to a mental institution for lighting the red-headed girl's hair on fire, and his other best friend, homophobic, germophobic, nymphomaniac Matt was probably off somewhere terrorizing piano prodigy Beethoven.
When C.B. begins a romantic relationship with Beethoven, things go from bad to worse.
Drug use, suicide, eating disorders, teen violence, rebellion and sexual identity collide and careen toward an ending that's both haunting and hopeful.
Doubt: A Parable by John Patrick Shanley
Chosen as the best play of the year by over 10 newspapers and magazines, Doubt is set in a Bronx Catholic school in 1964, where a strong-minded nun wrestles with conscience and uncertainty as she is faced with concerns about one of her male colleagues.
In an interview with Denver Post theatre critic John Moore, Shanley had this to say about the play's plot and intent:
"I wasn't at all interested in the church scandals when I wrote this play," said Shanley. "What interested me was the moral certainty that people had at that time about all kinds of things. And it was so deep, they couldn't see things that were right in front of them.
"That is a sporadically — but huge — recurring social phenomenon, that people in a society become invested with a belief in something, and no evidence before their eyes will controvert that belief. They will curse their own children rather than not believe the illusion they are all sharing.
"And that was the part of the church scandals that interested me."
From left to right: Meghan Connor as Maxine, Ryan Miller as Shannon, Brenna Otts as Hannah, and Jonathan Farwell as Nonno.