Here’s the email I sent to 10 playwrights the other night seeking input on the new syllabus I’m writing for a class:

I’m taking a quick unscientific poll of playwrights I know whose work I respect to see what they would say in response to this question:

“What are the six contemporary American plays you could learn something about writing plays from?”

If you have just a few minutes to ponder this and reply, I’d appreciate it.

I already know what I think — obviously — but I’d like to know what YOU think.

“Contemporary” in this context means post-1950.

I don’t mean the BEST plays necessarily — I mean the plays that truly demonstrate how to do at least one particular thing well. “True West,” for example, demonstrates how to convey a lot of information organically (as in the opening line), among other things. I think “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” does a great job of foreshadowing. On the other hand, I love “Waiting for Godot” and am a huge fan of Ionesco, but I don’t know that there are any (positive) lessons in playwriting to be gleaned there.

This is an opportunity to send up a signal flare for plays you admire and to let others slip off into the annals of history.

If you have those few minutes and can respond, I’ll be grateful.

Thank you.

Seven of them responded, and while there are a couple of selections I anticipated, and there is some overlap, I still find the list filled with surprises. To wit:

From Respondent #1:

Making it American and post-1950 takes away my favorite learning plays — Chekhov’s rewrite of The Wood Demon into Uncle Vanya, but here goes (off the top of my head):

HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE, by Paula Vogel. Shows how you can use disjointed time and scene sequence to trick an audience out of its prejudices and allow it to view provocative subject matter (child molestation in this case) from a completely fresh angle.

THE FEVER, by Wallace Shawn. Demonstrates how to effect traditional structure — inciting incident, rising action, crisis, climax, denoument — in a one-person play. Also how to handle and present dense, intellectual matter in a theatrically compelling way. A one-person play called MY ITALY STORY by Jospeph Gallo does the structure thing, too.

ANGELS IN AMERICA by Tony Kushner. How to create an alternate universe on stage that really works on its own terms and yet resonates with the audience’s experience of our “real” world. Also, how to inflate domestic drama to the level of grand opera, without music.

DOUBT, PILLOWMAN and PROOF, by John Patrick Shanley, Martin McDonough and David Auburn, respectively, all as one entry, because they demonstrate the same thing: how to structure a modern mystery play — a “whodunnit” — and keep the audience in their seats guessing about what’s really what until the final curtain.

DEATH OF A SALESMAN, by Arthur Miller. How to write an interior play, i.e., a play that’s really going on inside the protagonist’s head, while still keeping events external and dramatic enough to carry the audience along.

LOVE, VALOR, COMPASSION, by Terrence McNally. Demonstartes how to effectively and seamlessly shift point of view. The book for the musical JERSEY BOYS, by Marshal Brickman and Rick Elise, pulls that off, too.

After I replied favorably to seeing HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE on the list, and wondering about Pinter’s absence, he reminded me that I had stipulated “American” and then he added this:

I followed your request pretty carefully. Although HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE and THE FEVER are among my favorite plays, the others on the list are not. For the most part they’re plays I like, but also plays that I think you can learn something about playwriting from.

I really like ARCADIA and just about all of Tom Stoppard’s work, but I can’t think what I’d learn from them. You said American plays, so I didn’t consider him or Pinter for this excercise. If Brit playwrights had been allowed, I would have included Marie Jones’ STONES IN HIS POCKETS as a good teaching play. It shows how to paint a big canvas with just two actors. Maybe something by Caryl Churchill, too.

I realize now that I slipped an Irishman in there with McDonough.

If I were going to suggest a Pinter it would be THE HOMECOMING or A KIND OF ALASKA. But again, I don’t think we can learn how to write like Pinter or Stoppard by reading or seeing their plays, anymore than we can learn how to fly by watching birds and flapping our arms.

Respondent #2’s list:

Proof, how to hide the major dramatic question (will she survive her emotional problems?) behind a McGuffin (did she write the proof)
Cloud Nine, how to play with time and space and effectively make a statement
Angels in America (Part One only), how to use epic structure in post-modern times
The History Boys, how to use of a naturalistic process (preparing for a test) as an umbrella and overriding metaphor for a community (England’s educational transition in the time of Thatcher)
Pillowman, how to mix myth and realism
Rabbit Hole, how to use the 7-page/week workshop format to structural advantage with emphasis on the audience preception shift.

From Respondent #3:

Narrowing it down to six is tough. Even tougher is not including any plays written before 1950 … “Long Day’s Journey,” “Our Town,” “Glass Menagerie” …

But here they are, in no particular order …

“Buried Child” – Sam Shepard
A Greek tragedy set on an Illinois farm. I can’t think of another play that operates on so many levels. It’s comedy and horror perfectly blended, and is a terrific example of giving an audience a play that is as deep as they are willing to dig … and there is always another layer waiting to be explored.

“Kimberly Akimbo” – David Lindsay-Abaire
This would probably be the most controversial play on this list as to whether or not it deserves inclusion. The play has its flaws, but his writing is so seemingly effortless (proven again in “Rabbit Hole”), that it catches you by surprise at how impactful the characters are the ending is. And it does all that without breaking a sweat. To me, that’s playwriting on the highest level.

“Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches” – Tony Kushner
Mixes magic realism with great comedy with awful tragedy, and does it all with beautiful language. This is the play Aristotle had in mind when he wrote The Poetics.

“1776” (libretto) – Peter Stone
This is the very best example of how to write 27 roles, each sharply drawn. And, in addition to the remarkable historical accuracy, Stone manages to make these previously cardboard figures jump off the page. And in what other musical comedy do you find such finely etched political and philosophical arguments?

“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” – Edward Albee
If you want to break new ground and create a visceral awfulness onstage that will be the model for many future plays and playwrights, I can’t think of a better example. The key to making this type of play work is to make it as compelling as a fatal traffic accident so that the audience simply cannot turn away. At three plus hours, Albee somehow managed to do this. It’s unrelenting and exhausting. Which makes it perfect.

“The Odd Couple” – Neil Simon
Not a single joke in the entire play. Instead, this is laugh-out-loud humor grounded in character. There are no lines you can take from one character and give to another (aside from the interchangeable Pigeon sisters) without the line falling flat. This is the best well-made comedy ever written. And, I believe (though it’s just a guess), the most difficult play on this list to write.

You could call this list The American Dream and not be far off the mark. I would really like to have included a woman here. Or a minority. (Well, Kushner and Albee are “friends of Dorothy,” though they’re hardly a minority in the theatre.) But you wanted the top six and these are they. In my opinion.

What I like about that list is the range: Here’s a playwright unafraid to equally admire the very disparate “1776,” “Buried Child,” and “The Odd Couple,” all of them excellent plays.

Respondent #4’s list from a contrarian playwright friend of a dozen years features some negative choices:

1. God’s Man in Texas by David Rambo for a demonstration on how you need to have something at stake (in this case, the pulpit of one of the biggest and most influencial church’s in America) that the audience cares about. This is an excellent play to study for theme, as it deals with father-sons in the spiritual and physical world.

2. All My Sons by Arthur Miller (and this might be pre-1950, I’m not really sure) about how to begin a play. The way the information is revealed in the first 20 minutes is especially deft. He doesn’t reveal everything all at once.

3. Mac Wellman’s entire output. How to write utter nonsense and be seen by the misguided as some kind of newfangled genius.

4. Angels in America by Tony Kushner. There isn’t a scene in both plays (but especially the first) that don’t offer lessons on how to write characters that leap off the page. (Also, he is very clear here about what the characters want, which is why they are so alive in the first place)

5. Nothing by David Mamet. Great playwright at times who can ruin playwrights who lapse immediately into his speech patterns, which seem so easy to copy but aren’t.

From Respondent #5:

‘Night Mother, by Marsha Norman. I think it’s a perfect text to teach with, because it is so simple and specific and wonderfully written. It is about one thing that the main character wants and how she goes about achieving it, and has such marvelous complexity of character over the top of its simplicity of action and plot.

“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” by Edward Albee. Because it turned me on, on, on to playwriting and has kept me there like no other play, and that kind of energy is important if you’re going to do this.

Talley’s Folly, by Lanford Wilson. I actually like Fifth of July better — but Talley’s Folly is direct, specific, two characters (so often new playwrights bite off more than they can chew with their first plays — casts of thousands, fifty different sets — this is an example of one set, two actors, and (again) a very direct action line.

Maybe something that has some good theatricality to it, too: Angels in America, or M. Butterfly. I adore Sam Shepard. Mamet’s Glengarry Glenn Ross. Take Me Out by Richard Greenberg really impressed me. The Pillowman is a terrific read, too, and very intense.

Anyway. There’s a few, off the top of my head. I could talk about this topic over gin martinis for hours. Good luck with the project!

I was surprised that this was the first mention of “‘Night Mother,” a play I have grown to admire more and more over the years, and one which I will certainly be teaching this spring.

From Respondent #6:

“Proof” – it’s the best contemporary example of the well-made play in my mind. I’m speaking particuarly of structure, plot, payoffs, etc. Done extremely economically with good character development.

“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolff” – If there’s better depth of character or superior, crackling dialogue, I don’t know where it exists.

“Streetcar Named Desire” (this might be pre 1950) – Language as poetry. Amazing.

“How I Learned How To Drive” – Breaking structure; themes that carry through the play. It was used at one of the sessions I took at the Kennedy Center and I was more impressed when I read it than with the production I saw here (with Molly Ringwald and Brian Kerwin).

“Angels In America” – It’s brilliant in everything I mentioned above. Really brilliant. And he doesn’t get caught up in the transitions between scenes. He just does them.

“Our Town” – that’s pre 1950, isn’t it? I think it was the forties. But I love the way it travels through time so easily and how it’s narration isn’t jarring and is woven into the fabric of the structure. And its universal theme is what makes it such a great teaching tool. Everyone can relate to it, even if the few cynics who condemn it for being corny.

Finally, I received this reply from Respondent #7. While I don’t know the last play she suggests, I so admire her rationale for its inclusion that now I’m going to seek it out. Here goes:

Doubt by JPS– because I think this is a play where the DNA of the story is really upheld in every scene, monologue, and line of the play (almost every line is an expression of some sort of doubt- and certainly every scene is).

Fences by August Wilson – Most structuralists maintain that Cory (the son) is the real protagonist of this play, even though it is 99% Troy’s story. I find that interesting and love this play for being complexly structured and have two or three utterly, searingly beautiful moments that lift it into the catagory of a classic.

Long Day’s Journey into Night by Eugene O’Neil– for the way he shifts your perception of the characters with almost every line, with stage directions, and with silences.

Red Light Winter by Adam Rapp– from last year’s Pulitzer shortlist. I would teach this as an almost masterpiece by a young contemporary writer. There are some significant Act Two and character problems — but it is brilliant at character development with the two male characters (female character lags a bit). Almost unsurpassed at dialogue riffs that seem gratuitous but are actually very specific and purposeful, and lyrically beutiful while still entirely conversational.

History Boys by Alan Bennet — this is a fascinating play that refuses to tie anything up with a bow for you. Everything seems random, the hand of the maker is not at all in evidence, there is no melodrama or manipulation on the part of the writer, it is made to be performed and not read, and it still manages a profound impact.

Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom by Suzan Lori Parks. This teaches you that you can do absolutely anything and call it a play. In a good way. The only Parks play I actually like. Utter freedom. Total creativity. Shows that playwriting is not a collection of rules, but a celebration of imagination.

For years, one of the things I’ve made a point of saying to students (as well as writing on the board) is this: “I may be wrong.” Although I have strongly held views about craft — how to accomplish certain things well on stage — when it comes to art opinions should be more freewheeling. Creativity demands freedom, and while good playwriting exists atop a framework of what will work (or play), ultimately rules are secondary. If I have any rule, it’s this one: Don’t bore the audience. But, as a very close playwright friend pointed out to me years ago, definitions of “boring” differ.

One thing the list points out is that while some of us gripe about the bad plays we see, there have been many wonderful plays written in our lifetime. The reason we may be unhappy any given night in the theatre may have more to do with our disappointment that we’re not seeing something as memorable as we’ve already seen and demand to see again.

Another thing it shows is that there is always room for good new plays.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 4th, 2007 at 8:00 pm and is filed under Thoughts, Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.