I never really got Tennessee Williams. But then again, I don’t think I’ve tried very hard. On the face of it, his works should be right up my street: I love drama, after all, and just about anyone who knows anything about drama rates Williams as among the finest; I love writers of the southern [...]
Posts Tagged ‘drama’
11 Dec
“Danton’s Death” by Georg Büchner
The play Danton’s Death was written by Georg Büchner (1813-1837) at the improbably young age of 22 (he was only 23 when he died). One can’t help wondering what course drama would have taken had Büchner lived longer; or if his few existing works (two complete plays, and the incomplete but quite extraordinary final work [...]
21 Sep
A dramatic interlude
Cyber-friend and fellow blogger Somewhere Boy draws my attention to this scene from the 1934 play Victoria Regina by Laurence Housman, brother of A. E. Housman of A Shropshire Lad fame. Enjoy! (In his dressing-room, Prince Albert is preparing to shave himself, when suddenly the door opens, and Queen Victoria enters. At first we only [...]
19 Aug
Reading plays
Plays, I keep being told, are intended to be seen, not read. Which perturbs me, as I rather enjoy reading plays. Of course, we can accept that plays were intended to be seen, but where exactly is the evidence that they were not also intended to be read? As far as I know, playwrights are, [...]
7 Aug
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-on-Avon
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Nancy Meckler, Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-on-Avon, 2011 To begin with, I feared the worst. Theseus’ court was a grim, grey, bare place, with men playing cards and hookers lounging around. Why should Theseus hold court in a cheap brothel, I wonder? The mood projected seemed so far from the [...]
8 May
“A Moon for the Misbegotten” by Eugene O’Neill
Eugene O’Neill was a strange one. Long Day’s Journey into Night strikes me as a supremely great dramatic masterpiece, and continues to affect me profoundly; yet nothing else he has written – not even the undeniably powerful The Iceman Cometh – seems to come close to that achievement. A Moon for the Misbegotten was written [...]
20 Jun
Long Day’s Journey Into Night
I have often wondered why it is that Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night has so powerful a hold on me. I have read some of his other plays as well, and, impressive though many of them are, none – to my mind, at least – comes even close to this particular achievement. As [...]
5 Apr
Ibsen, the Master Builder
Ibsen is still often regarded as primarily a “social writer” – i.e. as a writer whose principal concerns were social themes, and whose principal interests were ideologies advocating social reform. And while some have praised him for this reason, many others see this as a weakness: for if one’s principal concern is the righting of [...]
