I know I’ve seen My Fair Lady at least once before, but it was ages ago and probably when I was still in high school. My response to it was middling. The costumes and musical numbers left an impression, the story itself didn’t. I probably would never have picked up Pygmalion if it hadn’t been something easy to get my hands on and worked for a book challenge I’ve been doing with a friend this year. For plays, I prefer reading along with dramatized audio […]
A Serious Play About Trivial Matters
Most days I wish that I could create my own hybrid Algonquin Round Table and use my razor sharp wit to amuse my (fake/dead writer) friends. While I wish I was a good person all the time, I’m actually “best” when scathing…it’s a blessing and a curse. As I’ve grown up, I think I’ve tucked away most of these tendencies but I still think about my perfect round table. My line up shifts here and there over the years but always at the table are […]
By the Pricking of my Thumbs
Let me shout it from the rooftops! I LOVE MACBETH! Macbeth is my absolute favorite thing to teach all year…and my enthusiasm for the play must be catching because usually it’s my students’ favorite thing to read too. Clocking in as Shakespeare’s shortest play, there’s a heck of a lot going on it in. Rumor has it that King James I had a very short attention span (was prone to falling asleep at the theater) and loved the occult, therefore Shakespeare tried to write for […]
Losing your mind or your Cadillac?
I’ve been reading a lot of twentieth-century drama. But none has come quite so close to my current dissertation topic as Glengarry Glen Ross. Back when I was first doing my research, my dissertation director referenced it a few times, which meant that it needed to go on my list. It’s definitely an intriguing idea, and I liked the overlapping nature of the dialogue, though I bet so much of the play’s richness occurs in the delivery of the lines and the interactions of the […]