PLAYS, PLAYS, PLAYS!
You are what you eat.
You are what you attract.
YOU ARE WHAT YOU READ.
Knowledge is power leading to new opportunities which is why I have always surrounded myself with learning. To be an honest and truthful storyteller is to be an informed human. The more you know, the more you can offer. The more you can offer is the gateway to what others can offer you.
Here is a list of the ever growing plays that have moved me in one way or another. Enjoy!
A Permanent Image | Samuel D. Hunter | ★★★★☆
A Permanent Image introduces us to the members of an estranged family from small-town Idaho as they gather to bury the family patriarch just before Christmas. Siblings Bo and Ally arrive after years away to find that their mother has painted everything in the house-including magazines, calendars and the television-white. They worry about the mental health of their mother, but as the play unwinds, so too does the method behind her madness. Bo and Ally are suddenly faced with a reality that brings their already strained worlds crashing down. A PERMANENT IMAGE paints a startling picture of the interrelations of a broken family, going far deeper. How do we cope when confronted with just how small our lives really are in the big picture?
Broken | Mary Anne Butler | ★★★★ 1/2
A car crash in the Central Desert. A broken man, about to leave his wife. A woman miscarrying her firstborn child. BROKEN entwines the stories of three complex lives as they unfold on a single fateful night in the heart of the Northern Territory's desert country.
Dry Land | Ruby Rae Spiegel | ★★★★ 1/2
Ester is a swimmer trying to stay afloat. Amy is curled up on the locker room floor. DRY LAND is a play about abortion, female friendship, and resiliency, and what happens in one high school locker room after everybody’s left.
Far Away | Caryl Churchill | ★★★★ 1/2
Confronting our deepest fears, Caryl Churchill’s extraordinary play depicts a chilling world where everyone is at war, and not even the birds in the trees or the river below can be trusted.
Jesus Hopped the A Train | Stephen Adly Guirgis | ★★★★☆
Angel Cruz, a poor Puerto Rican, isn't sure why he's in jail after shooting Reverend Kim, the born-again Christian who brainwashed his best friend. But when the Reverend dies in hospital, Angel lands in solitary confinement next to Lucius, a card-carrying Christian serial-killer.
Miss Julie | August Strindberg | ★★★★ 1/2
In Miss Julie, a wilful young aristocrat, whose perverse nature has already driven her fiancé to break off their engagement, pursues and effectively seduces her father's valet during the course of a Midsummer's Eve celebration.
MMF | David L. Kimple | ★★★★☆
When Dean, Jane and Michael's polyamorous relationship comes to an end, the trio is forced to deal with the consequences of love in a nontraditional relationship. MMF explores the realities of love, need, want and people who don't know the difference.
Orange Flower Water | Craig Wright | ★★★★☆
Married couples David and Cathy Larson and Brad and Beth Youngquist live with their children in the relatively peaceful town of Pine City, Minnesota. David and Beth, after years of maintaining a platonic friendship, begin an adulterous affair with disastrous consequences. Through a series of scenes which all take place on or around a single bed, we see the painfully intense real-time unraveling of both marriages and, eventually, the construction of a very fragile but authentic new beginning for everyone concerned.
Rabbit Hole | David Lindsay-Abaire | ★★★★ 1/2
Becca and Howie Corbett have a picture perfect family life in the suburbs of New York until a random, tragic accident takes the life of their four-year old son. Soon after, Becca’s younger, irresponsible sister, Izzy, announces that she is pregnant: there will now be a new child in the family. As Becca and Howie grow apart, Becca’s mother, Nat, badgers Becca about her grieving process, and Jason, the young driver who killed their son, continually shows up to ask forgiveness, the group is on a bumpy road to healing with no road map in sight. Rabbit Hole delves into the complexity of a family navigating deep grief, and learning what it means to live a fruitful life when things fall apart.
Stop Kiss | Diana Son | ★★★★ 1/2
Son's story is deceptively simple: two young women in New York meet, talk about their boyfriends, feel a growing, unspoken attraction for each other, and finally kiss. And that one innocent kiss sets off a savage gay-bashing. But even as Stop Kiss confronts the reality of physical violence, Son's imaginative, moving, and surprising comedy brings audiences -- and her principal characters - to unexpected places.Callie is holding down a job as a radio traffic reporter when she meets Sara, a midwesterner who, against her parents' wishes, has moved to the city to teach third-grade students in the Bronx. Both have boyfriends, but as they get to know each other, their shared experiences and sense of humour create a strong bond. The tragic consequences of their kiss - the centre of this powerful drama - serve as both an indictment of hatred and a moving study of the perils inherent in living life fully.
Summer of the Seventeenth Doll | Ray Lawler | ★★★★☆
This compelling Australian play was a success in London and was hailed by critics in New York for its vigour, integrity, and realistic portrayal of two itinerant cane cutters: Barney, a swaggering little scrapper, and Roo, a big roughneck. They have spent the past sixteen summers off with two ladies in a Southern Australian city. Every year Roo has brought a tinsel doll to Olive, his girl, as a gift to symbolise their relationship, but this seventeenth summer is different somehow. Old patterns must be broken, new ways found, as all four lovers come to face certain unpleasant truths about themselves.
The Crucible | Arthur Miller | ★★★★ 1/2
Miller wrote of his classic play about the witch-hunts and trials in seventeenth-century Salem, Massachusetts. Based on historical people and real events, Miller's drama is a searing portrait of a community engulfed by hysteria. In the rigid theocracy of Salem, rumours that women are practicing witchcraft galvanise the town's most basic fears and suspicions; and when a young girl accuses Elizabeth Proctor of being a witch, self-righteous church leaders and townspeople insist that Elizabeth be brought to trial. The ruthlessness of the prosecutors and the eagerness of neighbour to testify against neighbour brilliantly illuminate the destructive power of socially sanctioned violence.
The Glass Menagerie | Tenessese Williams
The Mercy Seat | Neil LaBute | ★★★★☆
On September 12, 2001, Ben Harcourt finds himself in the downtown apartment of his lover, Amy Prescott. Over the course of the night, Ben and Amy explore the choices now available to them in an existence different from the one they knew just the day before. LaBute presents the brutal realities of the war between the sexes and explores whether one can be truly opportunistic in a time of universal selflessness.
The Removalists | David Williamson | ★★★ 1/2
The Shape of Things | Neil LaBute |
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf | Edward Albee | ★★★★ 1/2
A dark comedy, Albee portrays husband and wife, George and Martha in a searing night of dangerous fun and games. By the evening's end, a stunning, almost unbearable revelation provides a climax that has shocked audiences for years.