Best play you've ever seen?

[+ purplekow]

1 hour ago, scrtlovr said:

Amadeus with Paul Scofield, Simon Callow and Felicity Kendall. The most mesmerizing play I have ever seen.

I saw a Broadway production of Amadeus with Jane Seymour I believe.  During a scene in which Mozart's wife goes to Salieri and offers herself to him so he will promote Mozart, Ms. Seymour undoes her top and exposes her breasts.  Just at this time I feel a strong tug on the back on my seat, and a man is standing and then collapsed into his seat.  I reached back to check for a pulse and there was none, I asked my friend if she felt a pulse, also a doctor, and she said no. I exited my row and grabbed the man and pulled him to the aisle. The play continued, people started shouting, and I checked again for a pulse there was none.  After a brief bit of CPR, he regained his pulse, the shouting grew louder, the house lights came up and the actors exited the stage.  Someone shouted that they needed a doctor and several people came running, including one woman who identified herself as an EMT and straddled his chest.  I informed her that his pulse had returned and identified myself as a doctor.  

At that point, the man open his eyes and spoke words I will never forget:  "Is it intermission yet?"  He insisted on standing and though I urged him to stay down, he refused, walked to the back of the theater and received a loud round of applause from the audience and was soon taken out on a gurney.  We all returned to our seats, Jane re-exposed her breasts and the play went on.  Sadly, the pulseless man proved to get the loudest round of applause on that night.  Even a double dose of Ms. Seymour's double D's could not out do our pulseless hero.  BTW, my friend's husband who had gone off to the Men's room, came back as the shouting was going on and as he sat down he said to me, I heard a commotion and I knew you had to be in the middle of it.  

[scrtlovr]

5 minutes ago, purplekow said:

I saw a Broadway production of Amadeus with Jane Seymour I believe.  During a scene in which Mozart's wife goes to Salieri and offers herself to him so he will promote Mozart, Ms. Seymour undoes her top and exposes her breasts.  Just at this time I feel a strong tug on the back on my seat, and a man is standing and then collapsed into his seat.  I reached back to check for a pulse and there was none, I asked my friend if she felt a pulse, also a doctor, and she said no. I exited my row and grabbed the man and pulled him to the aisle. The play continued, people started shouting, and I checked again for a pulse there was none.  After a brief bit of CPR, he regained his pulse, the shouting grew louder, the house lights came up and the actors exited the stage.  Someone shouted that they needed a doctor and several people came running, including one woman who identified herself as an EMT and straddled his chest.  I informed her that his pulse had returned and identified myself as a doctor.  

At that point, the man open his eyes and spoke words I will never forget:  "Is it intermission yet?"  He insisted on standing and though I urged him to stay down, he refused, walked to the back of the theater and received a loud round of applause from the audience and was soon taken out on a gurney.  We all returned to our seats, Jane re-exposed her breasts and the play went on.  Sadly, the pulseless man proved to get the loudest round of applause on that night.  Even a double dose of Ms. Seymour's double D's could not out do our pulseless hero.  BTW, my friend's husband who had gone off to the Men's room, came back as the shouting was going on and as he sat down he said to me, I heard a commotion and I knew you had to be in the middle of it.  

I knew it was mesmerizing but that might be taking it a little too far 👹.

[+ Lucky]

The Inheritance (Part 1) by Mathew Lopez.

[+ WilliamM]

I Strange interlude with Glenda Jackson 

Eugene O'Neill 

Difficult  but mostly wonderful 

[+ WilliamM]

I saw a classic play with Sir Ralph Richardson. Don't remember remember the play but absolutely remember Mr. Richardson. In London 

The play was The Wild Duck

Edited July 16 by WilliamM

[Manhattan]

The Wild Duck!

That is an unexpected entry. Very cool. 

[+ WilliamM]

Silent Night, Lonely Night 

 

With Henry Fonda and Barbara Bel Gettes 

[Manhattan]

Hey WilliamM,

You've hit a lot of decades. Don't leave is hanging. How about a choice from the 1940s? 1960s?

[Ali Gator]

I usually see musicals on Broadway, and plays at our regional repertory theater (which draws audiences in from all over New England).  The best play I saw at this local theater was 'All My Sons', which just stunned me with the magical performances by the cast. It stayed with me for a very long time. 

At the same theater, during the same season (I believe it was 2005-06) they had 'Mornings At Seven'. Probably the second best play I've ever seen, with the same magical cast. (I have to say, they changed artistic directors in the past few years, and he has gone in a different direction than what his predecessor offered - I haven't been thrilled with the productions the past few years and probably won't renew my subscription this coming September). 

[skynyc]

On 7/8/2024 at 11:19 PM, nycman said:

'night, Mother

Or anything, anytime, with anyone, by Tennessee Williams or Samuel Beckett. The words are the magic. It really doesn’t matter how great or poor the performance. It’s the words. 

 

If you can get to Irish Rep on 22nd Street in the next week, Bill Irwin's On Beckett is all about the the words. It's a great interpretive look at some of Samuel Beckett's writing. Highly recommend. 

 

[skynyc]

Hard to pick one, but agree with BN above that Little Bear Ridge Road at Steppenwolf in Chicago right now is one of the best I've seen in awhile. Subtle and funny and heartbreaking look at two broken people trying to connect. Laurie Metcalf is amazing. 

 

[+ nycman]

6 hours ago, skynyc said:

If you can get to Irish Rep on 22nd Street in the next week, Bill Irwin's On Beckett is all about the the words. It's a great interpretive look at some of Samuel Beckett's writing. Highly recommend. 

 

Thank you so much for this.
I would kill to see it.
Unfortunately, it’s completely sold out for the rest of the run!

[+ Summerson]

I've been thinking hard about how to answer this question, because I've been lucky enough to see a lot of plays in my lifetime. I might well have echoed the choice of Angels in America if I hadn't been seated directly behind Tommy Tune for Part I the week it opened on Broadway in 1993.  Through no fault of his own, Mr. Tune was several yards taller than the rest of us in the audience and since I'd let my companion have the aisle seat, I didn't have a lot of room to lean around him to see. It was still a performance I'll never forget. 

But I also remember a very different play that I saw Off-Broadway (coincidentally also in 1993): The Best of Friends by Hugh Whitemore. 

Here's the summary from the current licensing webpage: "This unusual play by the author of Breaking the Code is adapted from the letters and writings of Dame Laurentia McLachlan, Sir Sydney Cockerell and George Bernard Shaw, close friends who exchanged a flood of correspondence during their lives. Their letters and essays are cleverly woven into a play about friendship, love of learning, and the inquiring mind's incessant search for answers to the big questions."

The three characters were real-life childhood friends who grew up to be separated by geographic distance and their vocations, which kept each of them busy much of the time. George Bernard Shaw was...George Bernard Shaw. Not much introduction needed, I guess. Sydney Cockerell became the curator of the Fitzwilliam Museum of the University of Cambridge. Dame Laurentia became a Benedictine nun and Abbess of Stanbrook from 1931 to 1953, as well as an authority on church music. They kept in close touch with each other through letters for their entire adult lives. 

In the 1993 Off-Broadway production I saw, Roy Dotrice played Shaw, Michael Allinson played Cockerell, and Diana Douglas (mother of Michael Douglas) played Dame Laurentia. I've never forgotten how closely, specifically, and joyfully they all worked on that stage. It was absolutely a wonder. 

 

 

[Rod Hagen]

Great thread.  For me it's almost a tie, but I think the Journey wins, between the original London production of Copenhagen and the production of Long Day's Journey into Night with Vanessa Redgrave, Brian Denehey and Philip Seymour Hoffman (I forget the fourth actor).  Copenhagen was a complete surprise, we knew nothing about it going in (this was 1999, maybe?), but the power of those three actors in LDJiN pushes it over the edge.

I have to say there was a WONDERFUL production of Candide at the Guthrie in MSP in the early 90s that was quite remarkable, as well as their Valpone and Dutchess of Malfi and Marate/Sade and, though not nearly as good, their production of The Skin of our Teeth was much more transgressive than the source material.  I worked in telemarketing/Fundraising for the Guthrie when I was 20 or so and I had to reassure many scandalized Minnesotans that the Guthrie had learned their lesson and would never shock them like that again. 

I miss the days when I gave a shit about theater.  At least plays are still good to read.

 

 

Edited September 28 by Rod Hagen

[Rod Hagen]

On 7/15/2024 at 1:56 PM, Lucky said:

The Inheritance (Part 1) by Mathew Lopez.

I regret never seeing either play

[+ WilliamM]

Tovarich with Vivien Leigh 

 

She did sing a few  songs 

[kingsley88]

I usually don't see plays since I have a tendency to fall asleep but..... a decade ago I watched The Glass Menagerie on Broadway starring Cherry Jones, Zachary Quinto, Celia Keenan-Bolger, and Brian Smith and I was wide awake the entire time and fully paying attention.

In spring 2019, I watched the play German Life starring Maggie Smith and she was captivating. It's a one-person play 85 minutes with no intermission yet Maggie somehow made time fly by. She can read out a dictionary and I'd be paying attention. lol. May she rest in peace.

[+ Summerson]

7 hours ago, kingsley88 said:

I usually don't see plays since I have a tendency to fall asleep but..... a decade ago I watched The Glass Menagerie on Broadway starring Cherry Jones, Zachary Quinto, Celia Keenan-Bolger, and Brian Smith and I was wide awake the entire time and fully paying attention.

I saw that production and enjoyed it very much. A few months later I was at Joe's Pub @ The Public Theater, watching some friends perform as part of a benefit for the Ali Forney Center. Cherry Jones was also in the audience, a couple of tables away from mine. At some point during the show, someone introduced her from the stage and invited her to come up and do something. She shared from her seat that she "only had one talent," (much laughter from the audience) which was "drawing hand-turkeys" (even more laughter). She meant the way kids in kindergarten trace around their spread hand on a piece of paper and color in the thumb as the turkey's head and the fingers as the tailfeathers. Don't know if it was planned or not, but someone raced off somewhere and came back with a stack of paper and some markers and Cherry Jones sat at her table and drew a bunch of hand-turkeys and people bid hundreds of dollars to own each one. She is a high-quality human, IMHO.