Just as the title says! Come in here to discuss the latest news from Broadway/West End, the various musicals and plays you saw, and recommendations of any sort. Off-Broadway stuff is also allowed.
For a starting topic, why don’t we discuss the most popular musical on Broadway-Hamilton!
Or if you’re feeling a bit nostalgic, we can always talk about The Lion King.
Um, the OP post is a little bit vague Pandora, or rather too generalized for everybody to start discussing. Why don’t we begin by you talking about some play or musical you want to discuss?
Postan some musik:
Why not Greek Tragedy? Its tangentially related to mystery if you are aware of S.S. Van Dine’s comparison of the Detective to the Chorus in a classical Greek Tragedy. They were a group of people who acted as sometimes narrators, sometimes characters, and are a very classic example of breaking the fourth wall as they would often talk to the audience. While detectives didn’t usually do the last one, in Van Dine’s stories they did tend to be a character in the action who did not influence it, usually watching the events go down and analyze and narrate them instead of being capable of intervening.
Personally, I am a great fan of the playwright Euripides, specifically his play Medea. It is quite a poignant opposition to the treatment of women in Greek society at the time, as well as the treatment they had for foreigners, and despite the fact it was one of the most repeated performances of any Greek tragedy in history, it actually placed three out of three when it was first shown and was not very popular to the Greeks because of these themes as well as the fact it had a female protagonist.
Anyone else familiar with Greek Tragedy and have a favorite play or an opinion to share on the subject?
That was an interesting post Rest, but thanks to lack of familiarity with the subject matter, I didn’t quite understand what you mean when you said that Euripides’s Medea “placed three out of three when it was first shown” so I was wondering if you could explain that to us?
Ah okay, yeah I always forget to explain that since its so familiar to me. So it goes back to how tragedies tended to debut in ancient Greece. There was a festival to Dionysus held every year called the Dionysia. So they would have three days of plays, and on each day there would be a trilogy of tragedies put on by a single playwright followed by something called a satyr play which involved men running around in nothing but a codpiece with a giant phallus on it (Don’t ask.)
In any case, after the three days were over, the authors would have their plays put against each other in a ranking of first, second, and third place for the authors who participated. Euripides received third place that year likely due to the subject matter of the plays he produced. He in general didn’t score too well during his lifetime due to his plays tending to be a bit subversive of what the people liked, what all with having important females and things that challenged the way Greeks viewed society and such.
I hope that answered your question.
I guess you guys could discuss Greek Tragedy as they are plays…but I do prefer more modern/classical stuff.
Ancient plays are fine but try to keep it at a minimum.
I mean, I think we can discuss whatever since this is the general Theatre discussion anyway. They also serve as the very foundation of all the plays to come, so people having a good foundation in knowing a thing or two about them will help appreciate how they have developed since then.
To go on, I would also posit that Umineko does originally start the metaworld as quite a similar thing to a Greek Chorus, it starts off as being the characters commenting and talking about the action outside of it without affecting what is happening within. This starts to break down as of Episode 3, but one could easily look at the episode 2 metaworld as such a thing, and I don’t think this was unintentional on Ryuukishi’s part.
Does anyone else have an opinion to add here? I’d welcome some discussion on the topic.
inb4 topic split
From what I know of the Chorus that does seem to sound roughly correct, although it seems odd that he would set up a device to be a parallel to something while also planning to steer away from it once Episode 3 came around.
I think its a bit of Ryuukishi deciding to set it up as such early on, and then sort of subvert the concept of it being separated, to be honest. Not only that, but Episode 3 was originally supposed to be a bit different, so perhaps he went in that direction due to the feedback that led him to scrap Land? It works either way I suppose. In order to properly subvert something like this it makes sense to start out with an example before going on to change it.
I wonder if there was any discussion about this parallel around the time Episode 2 first came out…
Oh, I’d quite like to discuss Greek Tragedy with you Restkastel. Though I’ll admit, I’m yet to be well-versed in it, since I haven’t read much of it. Anyhow, I like Euripides too, especially his sentence structure. You know, how they may look like simple sentences, but you can feel some powerful and absolute feel from them and they seem as if they’re manifested from the writer’s gut to paper. I’ve only half read The Bacchae from Euripides, which I stopped reading for some reason or another, but from what I’ve read, I really liked it. It builds the world and air of the ancient times pretty well too, I felt like the descriptions of places and people were taking me back to Ancient Greece. And the characters were very good too, and like you said it really describes the society at that time, showing the characters to be so dramatic with their actions, rather than thinking it through in a more grounded manner like people nowadays do. Anyhow, as you can see, I have read very little of it, so I can’t say more. Though I do have a collection of some of Euripides’ plays and another book of the Oedipus trilogy, so could you give me some advice as to where to start? Should I start with Medea, that you mentioned?
And speaking of, does anybody here like Moliere’s plays?
The Bacchae is also a very good play from him, I would recommend finishing it I were you as well. Its another one of his better ones in my opinion. The Oedipus Trilogy is also quite good, but I honestly would indeed start with Medea. It probably is one of the most masterful Greek Tragedies extant, which is quite well demonstrated in the fact it was the most performed one of the bunch up through the 20th century.
If you are looking for more, I would recommend the Oresteia, which is the series presented by Aseschylus in 458 BCE at the Great Dionysia, in which it won first place. The parts fully extant are Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides, and I believe there are at least fragments of Proteus, which if I recall correctly was the Satyr play that went with it, though I might be mistaken. Its quite good.
The only one of Moliere’s plays that I have touched is Tartuffe, though I found it quite good. He did rely more on stock characters to tell stories rather than develop his own characters too much, but that was not uncommon for the time and thus not something to hold against him. Its a stylistic element, rather than a commentary on the author.
Ah, I see. Yes, of course I do intend to finish The Bacchae, though I’ll probably have to restart it and as for Medea, it will probably be what I’m reading next. Then I’ll probably go through some of the other plays in the collection of Euripides that I have. Anyways, what’s Aseschylus like, since I have no experience with him yet? What’s his writing like?
Oh well, Moliere is a master of comedy after all, so the characters don’t get that much development in the genre, though I don’t mind and honestly hadn’t noticed it at all until you pointed it out, since I don’t care much about character development. His plays are very clever and witty, though and do talk about the society at the time subtly yet deftly still keep a light air about them. As for Tartuffe, yes, it is very good, and like I said, it cleverly intertwines the author’s observations on society and is a witty and light play all at the same time.
So.
Who here loves Tennessee Williams? I read Streetcar Named Desire in seventh grade and became steadily more obsessed with all of his plays since then. Most of the movie adaptions are pretty good as well, though I’ve got a lot of problems with the Cat on a Hot Tin Roof adaption.
Anybody else a fan?
While I haven’t read the rest of his screenplays, my school had us do a report on Streetcar a few months ago and I must say that I quite enjoyed reading it. Blanche is such a good character-especially for that time period, and the themes he explores are quite insightful as well!
Don’t mind me, just going to shill more of Heathers in animation form:
I’m a fan too, I suppose. I have read little of his work but I really like the flow of the words. It truly feels like the writing is quite articulate, with all the words ‘set’ in the proper places and everything. What other plays of his have you read?
Streetcar, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Glass Menagerie. I’ve seen the film versions of all of those and Suddenly Last Summer and I’ve seen Streetcar preformed a few time, always well. The first two are def my favorites; Menagerie is a little needlessly sad for me and Suddenly Last Summer is way way out there.
Streetcar and Glass Menagerie both have really good film adaptions, though Streetcar’s tones down some of the themes. I can’t compare the versions of Suddenly Last Summer because I never read the play. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is probably a good film on its own, but it so wildly misses the point of the play that I have to hate it on principle.
Anyway, I’m southern and gay I’m probably required to like this guy’s stuff. Even if it wasn’t fantastic.
Edit: Which ones have you read @Sapphire?
The part where Stella left Stanley in the film adaptation felt pretty weak to me, tbh. I felt like there needed to be a happy end quota, so the director forced it in.