Theater thread. What are your favorite plays of all time? 1.

>>8949756
>Tamburlaine
woah, interesting choice for marlowe!
i don't know if i could call it a favourite, but i love the grinding repetition of the play + how the structure reinforces the content. really phenomenal achievement~

>>8949769
His Fausto his great indeed, a real melodrama, not like that boring shit made by Goethe.
However, Tamburlaine is my favorite because it's just like an epic adventure super-hero movie... but done in theater. I can't recall anything like this besides Marco Polo's Millions or Peer Gynt... but still, the thing about Tamburlaine is the super hero thing.

Godot and Endgame, by Beckett
La vida es sueño, El mayor monstruo del mundo, by Calderón de la Barca
Antony and Cleopatra, Merchant of Venice, The Tempest, by Shakespeare
Oedipus Rex, by Sophocles

>>8949825
What is Antony and Cleopatra? Tragedy or Melodrama? I totally forgot that title, and now I want to read it.

Also, would you recommend me a good editorial for La Vida es Sueño? I read it in Tomo... it's not awful, but it's not great.

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>>8949876
It's a tragedy. It doesn't fit the definition of melodrama at all. I recommend it a lot. As for the edition, I read the Arden one and it was pretty good. I'm an ardenfag though, so I'm kinda biased.

As for La vida es sueño, Cátedra is the way to go. Good introduction, good notes, good text, stylish af, and it's a libro de bolsillo, so it's really convenient when carrying it around.

>>8949939
Thanks man.
Tragedy definition by Bentlet and LJH is: A play where a character interacts with the universe and alter the harmony in the universe, so the character is destroyed to achieve the return of the harmony, like Romeo and Juliet, Otelo and Hamlet. It causes compassion.
Melodrama is a play with an opposition, that's to say, two ideological bands crashing each other, just like Tito Andronicus or those Bernard Shaw's plays. It is like a roller coaster of emotions.

sorry, punching this quickly without reflecting or consulting my copy, so it's a bit insubstantial - but i really love anthony and cleopatra

>>8949939
>>8949876
there is something going on in anthony and cleopatra that makes it different from the tragedies that came before it, that i think lends credence to calling it a melodrama, or perhaps a romance.

radical subjectivity is a hallmark of shakespeare's tragedies and largely why he is so phenomenal. in the tragedies the subjectivity is largely internal. that is, the struggles, doubts, conflicts occur within the characters psyches.

in anthony and cleopatra the subjectivity manifests outwardly. by this i mean the characters' perceptions of events not only effects there internal struggles, it changes the very scenery, even the structure. the scenes towards the end of the play are rapid fire and kind of ethereal, the switch between the different locations is disorientating and despite their deaths being kind of pathetic, they are exalted in their love and die "heroic" deaths.

i really do think shakespeare was attempting to show the reality-distorting power of love and infatuation by having it, well, actually distort reality. which was a really radical thing to do.

>>8949784
yes - but there's a couple of things that make it really stand out (only talking about part 1 here, bc i think it is more interesting to read it on its own).

1. tamburlaine is completely morally neutral
2. tamburlaine never receives is comeuppance, nor is there ever a hint of it. it completely upends the idea of a dramatic arc

What do you guys recommend when it comes to reading plays? I loved reading Beckett's plays but I couldn't help but feel that I'd rather view the play than read it when I read someone like Ibsen or Brecht

>>8950718
I think that all internal conflict is always showed outwardly... but I can't think in examples besides Aeschtlus and Sophocles.
However, that thing is not what makes a play Tragedy or Melodrama.
Tragedy handles the cause-effect relation, that's to say, a virtuous person who is the model to follow for the rest of the society makes a huge mistake, interfering with the universe's harmony, causing his destruction (not necessarily death). And that, that causee the same sensation as discovering your father is a thief or somethign like that, it shows you reality and it hurts, but then you learn to overcome that, that's to say, you purify yourself.

Melodramas are fun plays that take place in imposible scenarios, worlds withpur consequences. With this, we can cry, we can get angry, we can shout, we can laugh... everything in the same packet, just like a sports meeting: emotions without consequences.

I don't know what's more likely to Anthony and Cleopatra.

>>8950757
Yes, part 1 is the great one.
Part 2 is as shitty as Age of Ultron compared to the first Avengers movie.

>1. tamburlaine is completely morally neutral
I don't know, I think he's a fuckin' dick that only do what he wants to do, somehitng like Montecristo count when he's back in France or Kamina from Gurren Lagann before the chapter 8.

>2. tamburlaine never receives is comeuppance, nor is there ever a hint of it. it completely upends the idea of a dramatic arc
Yes, the lack of comeuppance in the first part is what makes that play a Melodrama, that's to say, a fun play without consequences.

>>8950792
I believe that, if a play is exciting at the moment of the reading, it will be just as good with a good montage. And, if a play is boring at the moment of reading, it can be good with an spectacular montage (but I personally hate that, why would you set shity plays if you can set the great ones).

So, every classical play it's a deleite to read if you put attention to it.... however, if you want good plays to read, I can recommend:

Rodolfo Usigli: Crown of Shadows, Crown of Light, The Gesticulator, Woman Doesn't Make Miracles, Jano is a Girl.

O'Neill: Strange Interlude, Marco Polo's Millions, The Great God Brown.

Arthur Miller: All My Sons, The Death of a Salesman, The Crucible.

George Bernard Shaw: Widowers' Houses

G. Haupptman: The Weavers

Ibsen: Peer Gynt

Moliere: The School for Wives

Shakespeare: Macbeth, Otelo, Hamlet, Romeo & Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Tito Andronicus

Menandro: Dyskolos

Sophocles: Oedipus, the King, Antigone, Electra, Woman of Trachis, Philoctetes, Ajax.

Aeschylus: Prometheus Bond.

>>8951291
Your definition of tragedy is exactly what happens in A&C. You think the actions of Antony and of Cleopatra really don't have consequences that affect the course of history, and at the same time destroy and create a new reality? Because that is what actually happens. Read the play.

>>8951779
Yes, I will. Thanks anon.

>>8949756
bump

Shakespeare stuff.
German post-war theater.
Classics.
And the importance of being earnest, I don't know why I like it so much.

>>8951366
>montage
What?