What's wrong with Ibsen? I had Beckett ahead of Ibsen in the original list, but vacillated.
Easton Walker
>>[1.] Sophocles >>[2.] Euripides >>Shakespeare >>Aeschylus Pretty based. I might swap 2 and 4.
Matthew Johnson
Ibsen was a hack and a terrible writer. I mean, A Doll's House can't possibly be considered his greatest play and be *this* bad, can it? Yes, yes it can.
Xavier Edwards
Have you ever read Joe Orton? Loot particularly might be up your street
>Ibsen Make it stop, make it stop! There has never, ever been a more overrated writer in the history of the entire fucking universe.
Gabriel Cruz
Ossian guy didn't even exist lol
Justin Myers
///>no Maeterlinck >no Corneille >no de la Barca >no Lope de Vega >no Racine >no Kane >no dostoievsky (stfu he should be adapted for stage play all the time, his writings screams for it) >no artaud >no traditional japanese theatre >no mayan human sacrifice rituals
Nitpicking actually, your list is good but I'm saddened by some omissions.
Carson Brown
[smiles indulgently, wiping bread crumbs off pants] I say my little squirrel, you sure are a fiery one! Are you a fiery one, my little squirrel? Are you a fiery little squirrel, my precious darling?
Jose King
I echo the sentiments in this thread about Ibsen. There is something incredibly anodyne and antiseptic about his prose dramas - I've never seen a performance of one of his works that didn't bore me to tears. They are dramas weighed down by their Importance, made drearily inert by hoary didacticism. You see this in Shaw as well but at least Shaw had the decency to be funny I have heard good things about Ibsen's verse dramas though. I have always thought theatre is the last place for realism.
Jeremiah Ward
Kek
Joshua Jenkins
>I have always thought theatre is the last place for realism. I agree, but, well. You seem well acquainted with the genre, so could you tell me what modern theatre is like? I find it difficult to imagine contemporary productions in verse, I would imagine modern audiences buck against outright literary efforts as antiquated and (ignorantly) wannabe Shakespeare. Aren’t contemporary efforts all prose and realist?
Ethan Reyes
These are beautiful suggestions, actually. I've honestly never read or seen any of those names. I'll have to take a closer look; thanks, user.
Jason Rodriguez
> I've never seen a performance of one of his works that didn't bore me to tears
Really ? I have fond memory of a representation of Peer Gynt staged by student of my old highschool. Was surprinsingly good.
Brayden Morales
Okay, but cool it with the mayan human sacrifice rituals.
Since you took those recs in earnest, you might want to look up Marivaux, Musset, Hugo, Pirandello, Giraudoux, Anouilh and Paravidino. Kane is Sarah Kane.
Xavier Morales
Thanks mate. Someone actually recommended this one to me a while ago, but I was too caught up in other things to check it out. I'll hunt down a PDF and give my thoughts later
Juan Hill
much love
David Reyes
Never seen or read any of his verse dramas. I was speaking solely about his later Realistic plays
I couldn't say unfortunately, I'm hardly the biggest fan of the theatre in general. I find the obvious inherent artifice of the medium distances me from the action somewhat. By straining towards realism, the artifice is paradoxically more pronounced and the distance even greater. I much prefer to read Shakespeare than watch him.
Daniel Garcia
>By straining towards realism, the artifice is paradoxically more pronounced and the distance even greater. i've been saying this (less eloquently) for years
Kayden Hill
Four of the first 5 are in fact serious omissions by OP; don't think youre nitpicking, user. Appreciate Bluebird, but Maeterlinck's the one I'd omit here: his pop entomology's what's best about him, particularly his book on bees.
Tyler Flores
I would add >No Beaumarchais >No Rostand (Cyrano de Bergerac!) >No Musset >No Sartre
Aiden Carter
Sophocles over Euripides is correct but Shakespeare does in fact surpass both: not a popular opinion here for being the popular opinion in general, but there's no real way around this short of willful perversity. Valuing Wilde over Moliere or even Shaw is just silly much as I love Wilde's career in general. Not a bad list, really. Though Chekhov essentially wrote the same play three times he's nonetheless where he should be: Cherry Orchard's an amazing distillation, and a production of Vanya's one of the greatest plays I've ever seen performed live.
Grayson Moore
Bergerac's a great play, especially live.
David Cooper
Whom should I read (or see) for maximum spectacle? Like who’s a playwright who makes the stage explode?
Parker Roberts
Damn. Maybe Webster (Duchess of Malfi) who doesn't even appear here; a good production of Antony and Cleopatra; Bergerac as mentioned twice recently is really good in this way; for me (if the fifth act can be pulled off, which is generally unlikely but I've seen it done twice) A Winter's Tale, although I don't know why or how. As in Timon (for intelligent wrath) 'jealousy' in Tale is weirdly all the more real for being stupidly founded and even puerile- not nearly one of the best plays written or plotted but has enormous potential to explode on stage fwr.
Wyatt Taylor
>Shakespeare does in fact surpass both OP here. To be honest, I'm inclined to agree. Part of me wanted to avoid accusations of having "drank the Kool-Aid" with respect to Shakespeare's work (as viewed by Western critics). He is the only playwright whose entire oeuvre I have positively /devoured/ in a short time frame.
There's also the lingering speculation about whether the writing credit for certain works has been misattributed to Shakespeare. Nonetheless, that's by no means a deal-breaker: to have written even a few of his great tragedies (Hamlet, Lear, the underappreciated Coriolanus) and/or histories (Henry IV and V, Richard III) would place him head and shoulders above any other playwright in history. Thanks for the input, and for your kind words. All the best.
