# Reading > General Literature >  What is your favorite play?

## Levity

So I recently had the urge to read classical to modern plays. This involved "Oedipus" to "Antigone", "Hamlet", "Macbeth", and "A Streetcar Named Desire". A "Streetcar Named Desire" really impressed me and jumped to the top of my list for favorite play invoking the "hubris" model of playwright. I mean with Tennessee Williams you can never go wrong. So I just came here to ask what is your favorite play? And what would you recommend to see/watch!

I also would like to ask you to check out an analysis I wrote on the play and discuss anything I possibly missed!

fredarnold.hubpages.com/hub/The-Themes-of-A-Streetcar-Named-Desire
(I am still not allowed to link due to being new, I apologize!)

Best regards,

-Fred

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## Pope of Eruke

The Importance of Being Earnest! Easily I love that one so much.

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## Levity

> The Importance of Being Earnest! Easily I love that one so much.


I have read and saw this live! Great choice! I performed a shortened version of this in High School.

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## Pope of Eruke

> I have read and saw this live! Great choice! I performed a shortened version of this in High School.


You lucky devil you! I haven't seen it live, no where nearby does it...

“I hope, Levity, I shall not offend you if I state quite frankly and openly that you seem to me to be in every way the visible personification of absolute perfection.” 

ahaha

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## Dark Muse

*deleted* Accidental double post

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## Dark Muse

I have to say No Exit 

And if your enjoyed Oedipus I also recommend The Oresteia and The Trojan Women. 

My favorite among Shakespeare includes Othello, The Tempest, As You Like It 

I also enjoy some of the work of Isben, most particularly I really liked The Master Builder

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## Iain Sparrow

Absolute favorite would have to be... Amadeus, by Peter Shaffer.
Of the Shakespeare I've read, it's for sure A Midsummer Night's Dream.

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## cacian

> I have read and saw this live! Great choice! I performed a shortened version of this in High School.


which part did you play and what were some of the lines you said?
if that is ok  :Smile:

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## JBI

The Peony Pavilion. It's too long though, and the music is bad.

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## cacian

Waiting For Godot ~Samuel Becket
“_Je suis comme ça. Ou j'oublie tout de suite ou je n'oublie jamais_."
Samuel BECKETT, en attendant Godot.

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## Seasider

I like "An Inspector Calls" by JB Priestly and"The Crucible" by Arthur Miller.

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## Emil Miller

I have never been a theatregoer but one inevitably gets invited from time to time and goes out of a sense of duty.
Therefore the plays I have seen are few and were usually the choice of others: 

Endgame by Beckett

Iphigenia in Aulis by Euripides

Pillars of Society by Ibsen

The Bedbug by Mayakovsky


I can't say that any of them were memorable except for an over the top performance by Judy Dench in the Isben.
If I were pushed to give one that I did enjoy, I would say it was an adaptation of a P G Wodehouse story whose 
name escapes me now but was devoid of the declamatory angst of the others.

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## R.F. Schiller

Among modern plays, Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet is my favourite. The themes are somewhat similar to Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman but the dialogue is quite different.

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## cacian

also *
A Streetcar Named Desire* is a 1947 play written by American playwright 
Tennesse Williams.

some lines
“_The rest of my days I'm going to spend on the sea.
And when I die, I'm going to die on the sea. 
You know what I shall die of? I shall die of eating an unwashed grape. 
one day out on the ocean I will die--
with my hand in the hand of some nice looking ship's doctor,
a very young one with a small blond moustache and a big silver watch. 
"Poor lady," they'll say, "The quinine did her no good.
That unwashed grape has transported her soul to heaven'_

which made me think was the grape seedless or not?!

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## grigioverde

My favourite at all is Oedipus Rex by Sophocles because it incarnates the ideal of greeks tragedies, that, as you probably know, had the office of "exorcism" showing what a man can do, and in that way the viewer would know his instincts, fears, etc finally knowing of what he's capable of doing avoiding anything (is more complex and I'm not even good with words); so, Sophocles in the Oedipus shows that things but differently to the other plays, the protagonist herself can know his shadow, his desires (etc) renouncing the vision of the "superficial" blinding himself.

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## Pearlstein

I think i'd go with the Iceman Cometh by Eugene O'Neill.

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## mona amon

I love plays and I've seen so few in performance that I've loved them all indiscriminately. It's just pure magic when the curtain rises and the actors do their thing and everything just comes to life! 

Some favourites among those that I've seen -

1. Arms and the Man - Shaw
2. The Importance of Being Earnest - Wilde (I actually do not care for this play when I read it. It seems entirely composed of empty aphorisms stuck together. But it is very entertaining in performance. Personal trivia - this was a school production and the part of Cecily was played by _God of Small Things_ author Arundati Roy, who was my senior in school )
3. Ceasar and Cleopatra - Shaw
4. Bury the Dead - Irwin Shaw

Favourites among those I've only read -

Shakespeare -
Hamlet, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night, Anthony and Cleopatra

Shaw -
The Devil's Disciple, Saint Joan, Man and Superman, Major Barbara, Getting Married, Androcles and the Lion, Pygmalion.

I also like The Crucible by Arthur Miller, and love Waiting For Godot by Samuel Beckett.

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## Iain Sparrow

> I love plays and I've seen so few in performance that I've loved them all indiscriminately. It's just pure magic when the curtain rises and the actors do their thing and everything just comes to life!


Indeed, there's an energy in a live performance that no movie can match.
And even when things go wrong, _an actor screws up a line or bumps into a prop_, and the whole audience holds a collective breath... it's still exciting to see it all happen in front of you, with no retakes.

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## Pierre Menard

*Waiting for Godot by Beckett* - An endlessly rewarding play, beautifully written and as always, Beckett balances that line between comedy and tragedy to perfection. 
*The Plays of Aeschylus and Sophocles* (haven't finished my readings of Euripides and have sadly not touched Aristophanes yet) - The masters. Powerful, powerful works. We're lucky to still have a number of their plays intact.
*The Plays of Shakespeare* - What can I possibly say? The humour, the pathos, the poetry, the depth, the language, the characters, the tragedy, the everything. I can't imagine life without Shakespeare.

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## ChicagoReader

I'm dreadfully under-read when it comes to plays but ironically one of my favorite reads is Death of a Salesmen. I own The Crucible but have never gotten to it for some reason, but will try to now that several have recommended it! I also enjoyed Beckett's Endgame.

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## PerfectLovers

I love, love, love The Tempest. I also recommend W;t by Margaret Edson.

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## PerfectLovers

Also you can't go wrong with Tennessee Williams.

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## WolfLarsen

My favorite plays were of the off-off-Broadway variety in the eastern village area of New York City. Bizarre plots, bizarre dialogue, great acting  the best acting I've ever seen!

And in the Fringe Festival you got to see so much bizarre in so little time! Not all of it was bizarre, but much of it was creative, and some of it wasn't.

The Broadway plays did absolutely nothing for me. The off-Broadway plays did a little for me, a little.

I must've seen nearly 200 plays. But I'm not sure.

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## Pope of Eruke

> *Waiting for Godot by Beckett* - An endlessly rewarding play, beautifully written and as always, Beckett balances that line between comedy and tragedy to perfection. 
> *The Plays of Aeschylus and Sophocles* (haven't finished my readings of Euripides and have sadly not touched Aristophanes yet) - The masters. Powerful, powerful works. We're lucky to still have a number of their plays intact.
> *The Plays of Shakespeare* - What can I possibly say? The humour, the pathos, the poetry, the depth, the language, the characters, the tragedy, the everything. I can't imagine life without Shakespeare.


The Clouds is great I think, because it shows that the Ancient Athenians found dick jokes and the like as funny as modern audiences do. Which connects you as you humans in a way, if you know what I mean.

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## Nick Capozzoli

The Tempest, King Lear, MacBeth, and Hamlet.

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## millwallbill

In no particular order...


History Boys by Alan Bennett

The Resistible Rise Of Arturo Ui by Brecht

Faustus by Marlowe

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## Vota

I've only read half a dozen plays so far, but my favorite out of them is currently Hamlet.

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## OrphanPip

I have a great fondness for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Williams. I also adore Death and the King's Horseman by Wole Soyinka, which has grown on me since I first read it 8 years ago. I'm also a bit fond of Ronnie Burkett's puppet theatre, maybe a guilty pleasure.

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## mal4mac

Has to be one of Shakespeare's plays, not sure which one. Beside those mentioned so far, _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ springs to mind, so I'll plump for that today.

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## mal4mac

> 2. The Importance of Being Earnest - Wilde (I actually do not care for this play when I read it. It seems entirely composed of empty aphorisms stuck together. But it is very entertaining in performance. Personal trivia - this was a school production and the part of Cecily was played by _God of Small Things_ author Arundati Roy, who was my senior in school )


Wow! She does great interviews, I bet she was good in that.

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## Golradir

Richard III is my favourite.

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## mona amon

> Wow! She does great interviews, I bet she was good in that.


She was one of those kids who are good at everything, academics, sports, everything. And to top it all she was very pretty! We juniors used to look up to her in awe and admiration.  :Smile:

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## Bengt Mettyl

A couple I think - 'Outward Bound' and 'The Long Sunset'.

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## Poetaster

All of The Oresteia, Richard II, The Tempest, Midsummer Night's Dream, or Oedipus Tyrannus. 

If I was forced to pick one, I think it would have to be Richard II however. I don't know why.

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## Quietudity

No Exit and Waiting for Godot.

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## hannah_arendt

"The Crucible" by A. Miller; "Desire under the Ealms" by E. O`Neille, "Richard III"

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## Carmilla

Hello Everyone!

My favourite play by Shakespeare is Macbeth. 
And by Ibsen Ghosts

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## WICKES

King Lear. Oh, and Henry IV

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## totoro

The Foreigner by Larry Shue. Such a wonderful, hilarious play.

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## Jackson Richardson

_The Importance of Being Ernest_ every time. I don't really want to see it live - I can quote all the best bits and imagine the scene myself.
_
They don't seem to know what thrift is. I have never seen a spade. People who live solely for pleasure very rarely are. Cucumbers were not available even for ready moneys. I didn't think it polite to listen_.

If you don't know the context, you won't appreciate how brilliant these bits are.

I didn't get _The God of Small Things_.

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## Eiseabhal

A play is not like a novel. It is a tool. It is a means to an end. I like the plays of Strindberg and Buchner on the page but I have never seen as moving a rendition of these as I once saw in Pitlochry of "A Man For All Seasons". This is because a play one hates ( and I hate that play and its commie playwright) can be made into a great artistic event by the work of the actors. So if Shakespeare wrote beautiful poetic work that was because he was a poet making his living in the theatre but a presentation of one of his dramas might be excruciatingly bad. Shaw ( another guy I hate) was a consummate playwright but sometimes it's his prefaces that are more interesting and Wilde could write froth and still be brilliant.

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## subterranean

One of my all time favs is The Skin of Our Teeth by Thornton Wilder.

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