5 Memorable Plays
Be careful about going to the theatre with us theatre professionals. While you’re immersed in the magic of the stagecraft, we’re squinting at the lighting grid, grumbling about the ground plan, and analyzing the actors’ moment-to-moment scene work. Unsurprising, I suppose. When we make our passion our profession, we lose some of the wonder that drew us there in the first place.
Still, even a grade-A theatre cynic will occasionally collide with a show that suspends all of the jadedness. We become naïve and vulnerable once again, regular people pulled into the siren song of live theatre. What is it about those rare plays that breaks through our most critical defenses?
This is what I ask when I reflect on my favorite theatre-going experiences. What specifically did each production achieve to remind me that theatre is the most ancient, enduring, and humane storytelling medium?
This is less a “top 5 list” than a sampler of shows—not always the most spectacular or prestigious—that wriggled their ways into me and never let go. Somehow, each of them was distinctly theatrical, achieving an effect that wouldn’t work the same in a movie, TV show, or novel. Maybe we’ll see some of them at DCP down the road!
Sleep No More: The pioneering immersive theatre experience, Sleep No More was supposed to last a month but has now been in residence in Chelsea for over a decade. This choose-your-own adventure is a complete maximalist takeover of a several-story New York warehouse. Masked audience members wander the space for three hours, following actors if they want or just choosing to explore on their own. There’s a Macbeth-inspired dance narrative that ties it all together, but that’s less important than the all-out explosion of vibes. I saw it shortly after it opened. Very few people were there. It was scary, lurid, and intoxicating. Most importantly, it challenged me to wonder: does every audience member deserve the same experience in theatre? Or is it OK if two people pay the same price and walk away with totally different tales? THE LESSON: Theatre is inherently alive and evolving. Depending on where you sit, which night you go, or in this case, where you choose to roam, you will gain an experience as unique to yourself as your own fingerprints.
The Aliens: A masterclass for any aspiring playwright. Why? When playwrights less skilled than Annie Baker sit down to tell a story, they think largely in terms of dialogue. What blew me away about this tiny production at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in the West Village was that it lasted two hours, but you could read it in 15 minutes. That’s because dialogue was understood as a minimally important feature in the authentic expression of human life. How much of your day do you actually spend talking? Probably less than you think, and that’s what Baker understands so well. THE LESSON: Great plays understand that words are only a small part of the alchemy of human life.
Title and Deed: This production at Signature Theatre was the best one-person show I’ve ever seen. One actor, one hand prop, and that was it. No set. Simple lights up. And then one idiosyncratic, charming character musing aloud for an hour about his strange journey to here. There are two kinds of one-person plays. Version A, which categorizes most of them, is the “let me tell you a story” memoir play. These usually lull us to sleep because the compelling stuff already happened, and we’re listening to the actor recount it. Version B, like Will Eno’s Title and Deed, is all about the reckoning that’s happening right now, in this moment, between this audience and this character. The lead of Title and Deed is deeply unsolved, and he needs his audience to help him to a resolution. That makes for a wondrous night of theatre. THE LESSON: When the conflict is present and true, you don’t need much more than an actor, a light, and a stage.
Jerusalem: My favorite Broadway experience wasn’t Hamilton or Wicked or Spring Awakening (though I love those all). It was this alternately epic yet intimate 3-hour fable from Jez Butterworth. It was doing so-so at the box office when I attended, which meant I could easily snag a discount at TKTS. I got a front row seat in a mostly empty mezzanine. And from there, feeling as if everything were being presented just for me, I experienced the incalculable power of Mark Rylance, the greatest stage actor of our time. Portraying a blue-collar Englishman facing eviction from his mobile home, Rylance delivered such a thundering, definitive performance that it become almost impossible to consider any other future production of the play. THE LESSON: No matter what happens in the world with technology and AI, theatre will retain the competitive advantage of live human performance. Its power cannot be copied or replaced.
The Oresteia: As a faculty member at Davidson, I had the 2019, pre-COVID pleasure of leading a research trip to Greece. One of our treats during the two weeks was attending a complete 4-hour production of The Oresteia at the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus. It doesn’t get any more primal than seeing the only extant Greek trilogy presented in the best-preserved ancient amphitheater. Were the stone seats punishing on the spine? Yes. Were the plays occasionally boring? Absolutely. But what amazed me most about this experience was the audience. My group sat in the back and could fidget, stretch out, and use the bathroom at will. But the thousands of attendees, mostly Greek and mostly old, who clustered in the middle of the theatre were something else. They never budged. Not once. For four hours. What a lesson in patience, in listening, in the power of rescuing a shredded attention span for one night and letting the only thing in existence be the story of the House of Atreus, unfolding in muscular, spiritual fashion on the oldest stage in the world. THE LESSON: Theatre is very, very, very old. It has survived every plague and every mismanaged budget. It ain’t going anywhere.
Pre-show at the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus, June 2019.