Top 5 Monday: My Favorite Plays

This week, I let my husband, Justin, pick my Top 5, and he’s chosen My Top 5 Favorite Plays!

1.     Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, by Tom Stoppard

I was first encouraged to read Stoppard’s absurdist tragi-comedy by my AP English teacher, Mrs. Walsh after falling in love with Hamlet my senior year. I don’t think you have to know Hamlet well to enjoy the play, but it certainly helps. I love the way Stoppard weaves in and out of the source material, creating double meanings with his extended scenes, as it were. Stoppard plays on the ambiguity of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Hamlet – Shakespeare never really comes out and says whether the pair were pawns in Claudius’ game or if they had machinations of their own. Stoppard takes the former approach, portraying a Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that seem to have absolutely no control over anything that happens to them. The play has both hilarious and poignant moments, and is my favorite piece of theater ever (just for reference, I saw it 6 times in 2 weeks when K-State’s Theater Department put in on my freshman year of college. I’m in love).

2.     Hamlet, by William Shakespeare

I’ve always been a huge Shakespeare fan, ever since I found my mom’s collected works when I was in elementary school. Part of reading Shakespeare is unraveling the puzzle of Early Modern English (not quite as fun as Middle English, but that’s a discussion for another time), and I love figuring out all of Shakespeare’s intricate turns of phrase and double meanings. Reading Hamlet my senior year felt like the most natural thing in the world for me. I fell in love with the story, the language, and the Prince of Denmark himself (it helped that we watched Branagh’s film version – which I sometimes still put on for fun). I just really, really love this play, and still quote random lines (I often tell Justin to leave alone the “porches of mine ears”, for example). My point is this – I love Hamlet, and I’m not just one of those people who says that because I’m “supposed to”. It’s a fantastic piece of writing and a great story about the human condition.

3.     A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by William Shakespeare

I didn’t want to put a second Shakespeare play on here (I plan on doing a Top 5: Bard Edition at some point), but I just couldn’t help it. On the page, it’s funny and engaging, but on the stage, it’s hilarious. The best Shakespearean actors are masters at helping the audience out and drawing connections for the audience (where, perhaps, they don’t fully understand the dialogue). I’ve seen some excellent performances, the most recent being at the Manhattan Art Center last year, and I’ve been in some excellent performances (my favorite, of course, being the “play-within-a-play” we did in 8^th grade). It’s a story I could watch over and over, and I love it so much I used the play as the basis for my first NaNoWriMo novel.

4.     The Pillowman, by Martin McDonagh

If you are ever fortunate enough to see this play performed live, please do it. Justin and I lucked out – some of K-State’s (best ever) Theater students were putting The Pillowman on as a requirement for an advanced acting class the same semester I took Hedrick’s “Gender, Terror, and Horror” class, so I went to see it for extra credit. I’ve always been a huge fan of the horror genre, and very few things I’ve read or seen have scared me. This did. I had nightmares for weeks after seeing this play. McDonagh’s characters are able to paint such vivid word-pictures; I couldn’t get them out of my mind. It’s definitely not an easy play to read – and made me physically uncomfortable to see live – but it’s so, so worth it. The Pillowman asks tough questions, but yields rewarding answers.

5.     Arsenic and Old Lace, by Joseph Kesselring

Arsenic and Old Lace is probably the funniest play on this list, at least when it comes to straightforward comedy. It’s a lot of fun, if not a bit morbid – after all, it’s about two little old ladies that poison their boarders for money. It’s not a cerebral play, but it’s laugh out loud funny throughout. I’ve only seen it performed by one cast (countless times, since I attended a great many rehearsals and shows when Justin directed the play during his student teaching at Manhattan High), but I loved every minute of it. This is also the only entry on the list that I’ve never read – I’ve only seen it live. I imagine reading it wouldn’t give the same comic effect, so this is another one that I’ll say you have to see it live if you get the chance.

There you have it – my top 5 favorite plays. I’ll be back next Monday with another countdown, and look for reviews of Anna and the French Kiss (Stephanie Perkins) on Wednesday and Before I Fall (Lauren Oliver) on Friday. Have a happy week!

Mischief Managed,

Slim Pearl Silver-Feather

Currently Reading: On hiatus!

Books Read in 2012: 20 (I read a book for work over the weekend)