10 Stage Plays That Affected Me
What can I say? I like making lists.
Growing up, the subject of theatre and drama were foreign to me. It wouldn’t be until later in life that I found a penchant for stage plays, to which this day I remain an ardent if-voracious neophyte. Novelists cracked my heart open to creative writing, poets outright tore it to shreds, while playwrights enflamed the pieces. There’s not enough time in our world, I believe, to take all of it in, and thus, this list will be infinitely un-expansive, limited.
In no particular order (beyond #1):
#1. My Name Is Rachel Corrie (2005)
Taken from writings of Rachel Corrie, edited by Alan Rickman and Katharine Viner
This is beautiful and heartbreaking. A play that’s emotionally influenced me, beyond artistic, My Name Is Rachel Corrie is a visceral experience. Part journal, stream-of-consciousness, epistolary, dream-like narrative, the play lifts Rachel Corrie’s real-life diary to expound upon her true story of activism culminating in 2003, in-which, while protesting Israeli expropriation of Palestinian land, was murdered by the IDF. There’s too much to encapsulate here, but what I will try to put succinct is: her writing is honest, heart-wrenching, beautiful, breath-taking, and to say I grew teary reading then re-reading this play...would be putting it mild. I often still think about this play, her words, humanity, as I relate so much of how she writes. Today, her legacy lives on through her foundation that can be found here: https://rachelcorriefoundation.org
#2. The Glass Menagerie (1944)
Tennesse Williams
“Blue roses,” a visual metaphor that’s stuck with me since. “Time: now and the past,” a simple yet eloquent delineation to which we’re experienced through the characters’ lenses. Only 4 characters comprise The Glass Menagerie, its sets simple, plot relatively A-to-B, but built atop those factors is a decidedly rich text brimming with themes of loss, nostalgia, the ephemerality of memory, and more. Williams has a poet’s essence, a knack for elucidating the idiosyncratic profundities about emotion, and it’s all so well-put on display here. Laura Wingfield, an earnest, curious and disabled girl, serves as the heart of the story and anchors what longing innocence we’re meant to explore. This is a gripping play for many reasons, all of which, I’m forever enraptured.
#3. Real Women Have Curves (1990)
Josefina López
Within a forward preceding the play in its original publication, Lopez writes, “In the U.S. undocumented people are referred to as ‘illegal aliens’ which conjures up in our minds the image of extraterrestrial beings who are not human, who do not bleed when they’re cut, who do not cry when they feel pain, who do not have fears, dreams and hopes,” to which I couldn’t agree more. Real Women Have Curves is a play comprised of many interwoven, intersectional themes ranging from racism, poverty, feminism, identity, body image and more, which are all curated, corroborated through a profound honesty of characterization. Inherent to the play is comedy, which its tone carries the movement succinct yet intimate, and what Lopez has to say is from the heart and profound, relevant to this day, ahead of its time. I’m infinitely inspired by this play and writer; Real Women Have Curves is funny, beautiful, and immaculately-made.
#4. And Baby Makes Seven (1984)
Paula Vogel
I’m a sucker for stories depicting topics such as chosen-families, surrogate parents or makeshift relationships, to which And Baby Makes Seven wonderfully orchestrates by utilizing intelligence, comedy and offbeat-vulnerability. Taking place in New York City, the premise is simple yet complex: Anna, who is expectant with a child, lives with her partners Ruth and Peter, who live as a bonafide threesome in-hopes to build a family. What complicates the situation is the fact that Anna and Ruth like to roleplay, very much so indeed, to the point that their unique alter-egos (consistent of three eccentric boys modeled to be their kids, Cecil, Henri and Orphan) bleed into their adult-lives and threaten to disrupt any sense of ‘normalcy’. Strangely, And Baby Makes Seven holds a lot of truth within its exploration of alternate-identities and consensually living out our fantasies. I love the characters and comedy; this is heartwarming, a joy to read.
#5. You Can’t Take It With You (1936)
Moss Heart and George Kaufman
Another comedy on the list, You Can’t Take It With You is a moving – albeit, dated – story about one New York City family’s ups and down. Their money is tight, personalities abundant, and what modicums of wisdom seem intractably tethered to whimsicality and outré. Alice Sycamore, the daughter to Paul and Penny and princess of the lot, provides contrast against her familial chaos, serving as the lens or outsider to her “weird” family. Grandpa Vanderhof hasn’t ever paid taxes, Penny is a mellow-dramatist who types away derisory tales, Paul experiments (much to fail) with fireworks in the basement alongside Mr. De Pinna, Alice’s sister Essie plays the xylophone and dreams to become a ballerina, Ed her husband is a wannabe hotshot who tries lifting everything to copy, their butler Rheba tends to them as if children, while her boyfriend Donald mainly drops in to interrupt, and all this is established within the first act! While some of the cultural references and norms now-definitely show their obsoleteness, what remains is a touching tale of family and learning to embrace the things that make us different.
#6. Glengarry Glen Ross (1984)
David Mamet
Winner of the 1984 Pulitzer for drama, this stage play would later become something of a cult hit for moviegoers 8 years later starring Al Pacino. There’s a euphemism amongst screenwriters for blockbuster, Hollywood scripts known as the term, “bumper-sticker movies,” and I believe it can be said of this play. “Coffee’s for closers’ only,” is something of a meme in today’s zeitgeist. An explosion of cynicism, sardonically-tinged existentialism, homoeroticism, indictment of the ways in which profiteering puts people in as-close-to-hell situations as possible (as true-to-life), Glengarry Glen Ross can be interpreted as near-documentary, but also, like an episode of The Twilight Zone. Nobody means what they say, but they’ll mean it when it’s said...so, who’s really a thief, because at the end of the day, we all need to get paid, right? This is opened my eyes to what a stage play can become, and just how far you can take it.
#7. The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice (~1603)
William Shakespeare
This tragedy holds a special place in my heart, as it was - by choice - the first Shakespeare tale I’d take at a young age. What initially drew me to the story was its interracial depiction of love and drama, though the play revealed much more. Filled with apologues, poetic rhythm and grim characterizations, the craftsmanship of which Othello was written ossified into my memory, while its broader themes became something of a learning experience. I suppose there’s isn’t too much I can add that hasn’t already been said about this play, so I’ll summate this pick with one of my favorite lines: “But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve; For daws to peck at: I am not what I am.”
#8. Three Sisters (1900)
Anton Checkhov
Three Sisters, a somber tale of nostalgia, grief, coming of age, dreams and love (amongst other things), is a story that follows siblings Olga, Irina and Masha collectively navigating through the loss of their father, all-the-while simultaneously traversing romance. Andrey, their brother, is of a distance, heavy-hearted for similar yet different reasons, and his relationship with each of his sisters serves both contrast and reflection, for at-first he is idolized, then later unwoven. The focal tenets for this play are relationships, their contextual abstractions, how one person is defined through the eyes of another, and how fragile the crux of that really is. Amid the odd exchanges behind-closed-doors reveals falsities, the derelictions of ambitions fastened to what, who we love, how happiness is but a transient breath we never knew we had, until it’s gone.
#9. No Exit (1944)
Jean-Paul Sartre
“Hell is—other people!” writes Sartre, for what is No Exit’s revelation, a line catechizing the play’s paramount declaration. Explicitly bore of existential thought, No Exit is at its purest, a sort of horror-character study that depicts the tale of three prisoners jailed in a room, to which their punishment is themselves. What becomes attested within the enclosed space is their faults, contradictions, hypocritical natures, personas all put on trial by one another, yet nobody can find a fulcrum of truth despite what seems an endless volley of catharsis. No Exit can be interpreted many ways, and to me, the story is of a pantheon of stories that illustrate our humanity by showing how can we manifest its opposite.
#10. The Children’s Hour (1934)
Lillian Hellman
Update: upon reconsideration, I had to substitute this stage play instead of the previously listed, Porcelain and Pink by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Salacious and scandalous at the time of release, The Children’s Hour was the first time an American stage play explicitly depicted a lesbian relationship. As per the moral and conservative quandaries instilled via Puritanism, even the mention of non-heterosexual relationships was enough to get a play banned (let alone fully fleshed-out and actualized characters in-sync by subtext), which was exactly what happened after its initial 1934 opening at New York City’s Maxine Elliott Theatre. The stage play would go on to garner a flurry of controversy, though throughout subsequent years, it’s been managed to be adapted and produced many times. The characters are believable, written succinct and emotionally honest even when perjurious, and what themes The Children’s Hour juggles feels natural in-relation to its subject matter. Although I do have certain criticisms regarding its melodrama and somewhat over-the-top ending, The Children’s Hour is well-written and ultimately, an entertaining venture about the power of gossip, accusations, the societal fear of homosexuality and lesbian relationships. Just missing the mark for winning that year’s Pulitzer for drama, this stage play is nonetheless one ruminating through my mind in-time, powerful as it is funny, campy, and thus, now, its retroactive inclusion.
