Plays You Should Have Read By Now (7-31-95)
Actually it would be more realistic to say that these are plays you should know, so start reading.
THE AMERICANS
Gladspell: TriflesO'Neill: Ah, Wilderness!, Long Day's Journey into Night, The Iceman Cometh, The Emperor Jones, Desire Under the Elms
Rice: Street Scene, The Adding Machine
Kaufman and Hart: You Can't Take It With You, The Man Who Came to Dinner
Odets: Waiting for Lefty, Awake and Sing, Golden Boy
Sherwood: The Petrified Forest
Hellman: The Children's Hour, The Little Foxes
Saroyan: The Time of Your Life
Steinbeck: Of Mice and Men
Wilder: Our Town, The Skin of Our Teeth, The Matchmaker
Williams: The Glass Menagerie, Summer and Smoke, A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Miller: Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, A View from the Bridge, The Price
Inge: Come Back, Little Sheba; Bus Stop
Kanin: Born Yesterday
McCullers: The Member of the Wedding
Simon: Barefoot in the Park, The Odd Couple, The Sunshine Boys, Lost in Yonkers
Albee: The Zoo Story, The Death of Bessie Smith, The American Dream, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, A Delicate Balance
Baraka (Jones): Dutchman
Hansbury: A Raisin in the Sun, The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window
Lanford Wilson: Hot l Baltimore, Balm in Gilead, The Rimers of Eldritch, The Fifth of July
Shepherd: True West, Curse of the Starving Class, Buried Child
Rabe: Streamers, Sticks and Bones, The Basic Training of Pavel Hummel
Mamet: American Buffalo, Glengarry Glenn Ross, Speed-The_Plow
Valdez: Los Vendidos
Shange: For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf, Spell #7
Fuller: A Soldier's Play, Zooman and the Sign
Henley: Crimes of the Heart, The Miss Firecracker Contest
Norman: Getting Out
August Wilson: Fences, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, The Piano Lesson, Two Trains Running
Fornes: Mud
Hoffman: As Is
Kramer: The Normal Heart
Hwang: M. Butterfly
Wasserstein: The Heidi Chronicles, The Sisters Rosenzweig
Wolff: Spunk, The Colored Museum
Kushner: Angels in America
THE BRITISH ISLES
Anonymous: Everyman, The Second Shepherd's Play
Ben Jonson: Volplone, The Alchemist
Marlow: Edward II, Dr. Faustus
Shakespeare: Hamlet, Julius Ceasar, Macbeth, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, As You Like It, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, Much Ado About Nothing, Richard II, Henry IV Parts I & II, Henry V, Richard III
Behn: The Rover
Wycherly: The Country Wife
Farguhar: The Beaux' Stratagem, The Recruiting Officer
Congreve: The Way of the World
Gay: The Beggar's Opera
Sheridan: The Rivals, The School for Scandal
Goldsmith: She Stoops to Conquer
Barrie: The Admirable Crichton, What Every Woman Knows, Peter PanWilde: The Importance of Being Earnest, Lady Windermere's Fan
Yeats: On Baile's StramdShaw: Pygmalion, Major Barbara, Man and Superman, Arms and the Man, Saint Joan, Caesar and Cleopatra, Mrs. Warren's Profession, Heartbreak Hotel
Synge: Playboy of the Western World
Coward: Hay Fever, Private Lives, Blithe Spirit
O'Casey: The Shadow of a Gunman, Juno and the Paycock, The Plough and the StairsBeckett: Waiting for Godot, Endgame, Happy Days, Krapp's Last Tape
Behan: The HostageOsborne: Look Back in Anger, The Entertainer
Pinter: The Caretaker, The Homecoming, The Dumbwaiter, The Birthday Party, The Lover, The Collection
Stoppard: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Travesties, The Real Thing, Jumpers
Dylan Thomas: Under Milk Wood
Delaney: A Taste of Honey
Bond: Lear
Churchill: Cloud 9, Vinegar Tom
Gems: Camille, Queen Christina
Friel: Philadelphia, Here I Come!; Translations, Lovers, Dancing at Laghnasa
THE RUSSIANS
Gorky: The Lower Depths
Gogol: The Inspector General
Ostrovsky: The Diary of a Scoundrel, The Storm
Turgeney: A Month in the Country
Chekhov: The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, The Three Sisters, The Cherry Orchard, The Marriage Proposal, The Boor
THE SCANDINAVIANS
Ibsen: Hedda Gabler, A Doll's House, Ghosts, The Master Builder, An Enemy of the People (Adapted by Arthur Miller)
Strindberg: Miss Julie, The Father, A Dream Play, The Ghost Sonata
THE GREEKS AND ROMANS
Aeschylus: The Oresteia Trilogy, Prometheus Bound
Sophocles: Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone, Electra
Euripides: Medea, The Trojan Women, The Bacchae, Hippolytus
Aristophanes: The Clouds, The Frogs, Lysistrata
Plautus: The Twin Menaechmi, Amphitryon
Seneca: Medea
THE GERMANS, AUSTRIANS AND SWISS
Goethe: Faust Parts I & II
Schiller: Mary Stuart
Buchner: Woyzeck, Danton's Death
Wedekind: Spring's Awakening, The Lulu Plays
Schnitzler: Anatol, La Ronde
Von Kleist: The Prince of Homberg
Hauptman: The Weavers
Kaiser: From Morn to Midnight
Sternheim: The Snob
Toller: Gas Trilogy
Brecht: The Threepenny Opera, Mother Courage, Galileo, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, The Good Person of Setzuan, Man is Man
Duerrenmatt: The Visit, The Physicists
Weiss: Marat/Sade
Handke: Offending the Audience
Kroetz: Mench Meir
THE FRENCH
Moliere: Tarfuffe, The Miser, The School for Wives, The Misanthrope, The Doctor in Spite of Himself
Racine: Phaedra
Marivaux: Game of Love and Chance
Beaumarchais: The Barber of Seville, The Marriage of Figaro
Dumas, Fils: Camille
Zola: Therese Raquin
Labiche and Marc-Michel: The Italian Straw Hat
Rostand: Cyrano de Bergerac
Jarry: Ubu Roi
Cocteau: Orphee
Giradoux: The Madwoman of Chaillot, Amphitryon 38, The Enchanted, Tiger at the Gates, Electra
Anouilh: Thieves' Carnival, Antigone, The Waltz of the Toreadors, The Lark (Adapted by Lillian Hellman), Becket
Sartre: The Flies, No Exit
Camus: Caligula
Ionesco: The Bald Soprano, The Chairs, The Lesson, Rhinoceros
Genet: The Maids, The Blacks, The Balcony
Vitrac: The Mysteries of Love
THE SPANISH
Lope de Vega: Fuente Ovejuna
Calderon de la Barca: Life is a Dream
Lorca: Yerma, Blood Wedding, The House of Bernarda Alba
Tirso de Molina: The Trickster of Seville
THE ITALIANS
Goldoni: The Servant of Two Masters
Pirandello: Right You Are if You Think So, Six Characters in Search of an Author, Henry IV
THE EASTERN EUROPEANS
Havel: The Memorandum (Czech)
Witkowitz: The Madman and the Nun (Polish)
Mrozek: Tango (Polish)
The Capeks: The Insect Comedy, R.U.R. (Bohemian)
THE AFRICANS
Soyinka: Death and the King's Horseman
Fugard: Sizwe Bansi is Dead, The Island, Blood Knot Master Harold... and the Boys
