Let's Read Play Wrap-Up

In November last year Fanda decided to host the Let’s Read Plays challenge. I review at least one live theatre show each week at Stage Write Indy and have been doing so for 8 years. So reading more plays is always high on my list. I think that plays are meant to be seen, but reading them can give you more time to process the text and can give each play more depth.

Fanda selected categories/authors for each month from November 2012 to October 2013. I stuck with the challenge and made it through all 12 of my chosen plays (see all review links below). I read a Greek tragedy, an American classic, a Russian play, a witty piece from Wilde and a lot of Shakespeare.

SHAKESPEARE

Over the years I’ve focused a lot on Shakespeare’s work. I took a class solely devoted to his plays in college. I’ve seen live performances at the Globe Theatre in London and attend an outdoor Shakespeare theatre weekend every year in Wisconsin. I love him more than any other playwright I’ve read. I’ve read all of his major plays, but I wanted to use this challenge to dive into his lesser-known works. I can’t say that these plays are new favorites, they’re called problem plays for a reason, but I’m glad I read them. I think seeing the whole body of his work helps me understand his development as a writer. He uses many of the same themes and devices in these early plays that he does in his more successful plays later on.

CHALLENGE THEME

I realized about halfway through the challenge that many of the plays I read focused on loneliness and rejection in some way. Troilus and Cressida deals with betrayal in love, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is about Brick and Maggie’s mutual loneliness, the three sisters in Chekhov’s play are all lonely in their own way. Oresteia deals with revenge and betrayal. The Iceman Cometh is about loneliness and the disillusionment of the American dream, Coriolanus is about being rejected by the people who once embraced you. I think it’s fascinating that I unintentionally had a theme throughout the challenge.

MEMORABLE CHARACTERS

There are quite a few characters that will stay with me for a long time, but I think Maggie from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is the one who comes immediately to mind. I’ve never encountered a character that ached so badly to be loved. I felt myself understanding that desire, but also hurting for her because she couldn’t make the man she loved reciprocate her feelings in the way she needed.   

Here are the plays I read:

Nov '12 Shakespeare's Tragedy: Troilus and Cressida

Dec '12 Shakespeare's Comedy: Love's Labour's Lost

Jan '13 freebie: The Iceman Cometh by Eugene O'Neill

Feb '13 Shakespeare's History: Henry V

Mar '13 Greek: Oresteia by Aeschylus 

Apr '13 Shakespeare's Tragedy: Coriolanus

May '13 Shakespeare's Comedy: Two Gentlemen of Verona

Jun '13 Oscar Wilde: The Importance of Being Earnest

Jul '13 Other author: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams

Aug '13 Shakespeare's Comedy: Comedy of Errors

Sep '13 freebie: Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov

Oct '13 Shakespeare's Tragedy: Cymbeline

  

A huge thanks to Fanda and Ngidam for hosting the Let’s Read Plays yearlong event!

The Comedy of Errors and Cymbeline

The Comedy of Errors

by William Shakespeare 

★★★

Have you ever seen the 1988 movie Big Business? If you have then you know the general idea of this play’s premise. Two sets of twins are born in the same place on the same night. One set of twins is wealthy, the other is not. The twins are separated at birth and one brother from each set end up growing up together as servant and master. Just to add to the confusion, the twins from each pair have the same name. 

The play is one big case of mistaken identity. Friends, lovers, foes, everyone is completely confused as they run into the brothers and mistake them for their twin. I think this would be an incredibly entertaining play for kids to see, especially if they’re new to Shakespeare’s work. It’s easy to follow and contains lots of big laughs. 

In later plays the Bard uses cases of mistaken identity and sets of twins to aid a larger story. This play feels like an early draft of the greater work to come, but it lacks the depth of his other plays. 

BOTTOM LINE: This is the shortest and shallowest of Shakespeare’s comedies. I have a feeling it would be really fun to see performed live, but it doesn’t work as well in the written form.

Cymbeline

by William Shakespeare 

★★★☆

This is one of Shakespeare’s most convoluted plots. It combines bits and pieces from his greatest works, but in a strange way. There’s a battle to rival that in Henry V, parental ghosts like Hamlet, a jealous husband like Othello and ill-fated lovers and faked death like Romeo and Juliet. In the midst of this jumble are the old standbys, a woman pretending to be a young page and banished people living in the forest. This play is divisive among Shakespeare scholars when it comes to its categorization, some consider it a tragedy and others a romance.

King Cymbeline of Britain is furious when he finds out his only daughter, Imogen, has secretly married Posthumus Leonatus, a man from his court. He quickly banishes Posthumus from his kingdom and shortly thereafter Posthumus meets Iachimo in Italy. He tells his new friend all about his beautiful Imogen. Iachimo isn’t impressed and makes a bet with Posthumus regarding her honor. Add in a devious Queen plotting the King’s death, her horrid son Cloten, missing heirs to the throne, warring Romans and a beheading and you’ve got the gist of it.

BOTTOM LINE: A strange mishmash of Shakespearean themes, but a satisfying if contrived ending. I’d love to see this one performed, but until then I’ll have to settle for the wild ride the play takes you on.

**I heard it’s currently being made into a movie with Ethan Hawke, Milla Jovovich, Ed Harris and Dakota Johnson. I’ll definitely be checking it out.  

I read both of these as part of the Let’s Read Plays yearlong event hosted by Fanda. From November 2012 to October 2013 participants will read 12 classics plays throughout the year, at least one each month.