What was the best/favorite/most enjoyable play you ever saw?

[BurtWorm]

The play I most enjoyed was "Travels with My Aunt," based on the novel by Graham Greene at The Cherry Lane Theatre in New York in 1995. It starred Jim Dale, Brian Murray and two other men, all of whom took turns playing the leads and the minor characters, male and female. Brian Murray, in particular, was fantastic, especially as a teenaged potsmoking American girl slumming her way around Europe. The plot was absurd and farcical--I barely remember it, but the evening was sheer delight. The actors were clearly having a blast.

My wife-to-be gave me that evening for my birthday and the poor woman fell asleep through the second act (exhaustion, not boredom). It was still the best birthday present I was ever given.

[truthseeker1]

1. Embedded by Tim Robbins

Simply because of the content - and at a time when few were willing to speak up.

[BurtWorm]

2. Was he in the cast?

[seventhson]

8. Yes! It is an extraordinary production

I went with my wife when I hadf to speak in NYC last weekend (a week ago) and we thought it important enough to bring our kids (age 9 and 14) to see it last Thursday.

The show in greenwich village (at the Public Theater) has been extended two weeks to June 5th.

Afterwards we got to meet Robbins, get his autograph and he let us take photos with him. Kathy Keener was in the audience and we even hung out with Mos Def for a few minutes after the play who was, well, Mos Def the coolest. He signed a CD for me.

It was very cool.

But the play is a historic event!

One of my favorite theater experiences ever was Melvin Van Peebles' "Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death" which I saw as a teen and blew my mind as far as what is possible.

Embedded is a surreal representation of the real and the mundane of the Nazi-like Bushes cabal and their worship of the Leo Straussians as well as the hypocrisy and futility of media in Iraq and the horrors of war.

A historic piece of history.

[truthseeker1]

13. He wrote and directed it -

didn't act in it though. I went to the opening night in LA and he sat a few rows behind us.

[seventhson]

15. Robbins is in the NY production now and we MET him!!!

He plays, among another role, Karl Rove as a lascivious necrophile.

[truthseeker1]

28. whoa! I had no idea he was acting in it now

[achtung_circus]

3. Lately saw "The Producers" in TO,

It's my current favourite, although "Jesus Christ Superstar" is a close second. And I enjoyed "Les Miserables" and "Joseph and his Technicolour Dream Coat"

AND OMG I sing show tunes.

Am I doomed??

[Career Prole]

4. My favorite play was actually a one-man show

Hal Holbrook's An Evening With Mark Twain. He was amazing.:)

[Rowdyboy]

5. Greater Tuna (with the original 2 man cast)

also The Mystery of Irma Vepp

[politicat]

6. College Production of Les Liasions Dangereuse at ASU

Minimal setting, but gorgeous costumes and incredible acting.

As a former theater geek, I've seen lots, but that production stuck out.

Politicat

[Zuni]

7. My fave

was seeing 'A Christmas carol' at Ford's Theater in D.C. when i was young, with my mom, especially with Lincoln's box decorated and the museum on the assassination in the basement.
It was really neat to see a play there.

[BurtWorm]

9. I'll bet! That's a gorgeous theatre.

I've only seen it from the outside. It's very intriguing looking.

[Zuni]

11. You really should go

Even just to soak up the history and to check out their museum. It is really neat.

[seventhson]

10. Marat/Sade in NYC

I was in a production which won 5 stars from Show Business magazine during the Summer of Sam

Howie mandel was in the cast doing his Li'l Bobby impression as an insane mental patient in post-revolutionary France. THAT is an incredible play with many parallels to today!

I also love August Wilson, who is a friend (or, rather, an old acquaintance from the Theater)

I also was impressed with a play by the science editor of Pravda about Chernobyl called "The Brides of Chernobyl" which was truly an eye-opener about the horrors and dangers of nuclear power.

[pagerbear]

12. Charles Ludlam's A Tale of Two Cities

A one-man show. He wrote it for his Ridiculous Theater Company, but I never saw it there. I saw it in Charlotte, NC, of all places! It was truly amazing!

[BurtWorm]

18. I saw Edwin Quint--is that his name? Ludlam's successor

in The Bells, another one-man show, a nineteenth-century Polish melodrama, I think. It's another play I can't remember much about except that it was very funny and he was great.

[pagerbear]

25. I saw that too!

Everett Quinton is his name.

I'm sad that by the time I arrived in NYC the era of the Ridiculous was on its way out.

[BurtWorm]

37. I can't believe I blew his name!

He was great. I'm afraid to ask if he's still around.

[pagerbear]

38. I've seen him around

...at least as recently as 2 or 3 years ago.

[HuckleB]

14. "Metamorphoses."

[peacefreak]

16. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

at the Mercer St. Theater. And a Rep Co.'s version of Marat/Sade.

[felonious thunk]

17. The Nutcracker with the Bolshoi

I know it's not a play, per se, but this was the best performance art I have ever seen in my life. I won't go see another ballet because I know that it can't possibly be better, and I want to love ballet even if I'll only ever see it that one time.

[myrna minx]

19. The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde

It was fantastic. Below is a review...

The play depicts Oscar Wilde's contribution, not so much to "gay rights" but to the notion of human pyschological, aesthetic, and intellectual freedom. The play has a definite didactic flavor: the narration sometimes overtakes pure drama (often necessary in history plays).

The story concerns Wilde's three trials in 1885. In the first trial, Wilde prosecutes Lord Queensberry for libel for accusing him of carrying on an indecent relationship with the Lord's son, Bosie. The trial focuses not so much on the evidence that homosexual acts took place as on the "subversive" nature of Wilde's writings, particularly the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. In the novel, Wilde had portrayed his philosophy of what we could call "aesthetic idealism" (the antithesis of a moralistic or religious "aesthetic realism"), which has its "pagan" roots in Hellenistic culture. For a (psychologically feminine) older man to love and mentor a (psychologically masculine) younger man for the psychological benefit of both was seen as a cultivation of new forms of beauty for its own sake. (Wilde claims he loved a young man's "spirit" but in fact that spirit was visually symbolized by a young man's body, as in Dorian Gray.) Art could impress these values upon people, and thereby liberate them from the oppression of a social caste system and from a corrupt, self-perpetuating state. The best political system for human freedom was, in Wilde's terms, no government at all. Wilde was indeed a libertarian, or perhaps anarchist. The artist, in Wilde's view, had the hidden power to mold the psychological values of ordinary people and a larger society.

In fact, the narration of the play explains that the trials of Oscar Wilde marked the beginning in western civilization of the pre-modern concept of a "homosexual" as a separate kind of person with inclinations that are inherently subversive and narcissistic. The notion of homosexuality as a character disorder, as developed in my own DADT book, seems to have been born in these trials. By treating it this way, society could avoid painful (for some people) psychological exposure. (Whether this really starts with Victorianism is debatable; other authors like Andrew Sullivan trace all this back to Aquinas). The military, in particular, has been able to exploit this notion of the homosexual as parasitic and disruptive. Sodomy laws are based on similar notions.

more...

http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/JBOUSHKA/prwilde.htm

[hyphenate]

20. The Man of LaMancha

in Symphony Hall, Boston, about 1982 or around then. Richard Kiley sang "The Impossible Dream" to me, which happens to be my favorite song. Of course, it helped that we had front row seats, and he came down to the spot in front of me to sing it. :) I got to meet him years later, and told him he had sung to me. He got a kick out of that.

I also had two plays where I got to meet some favorites: Monte Markham did a play in Boston with Deborah Kerr, and I got to meet him after the play (I don't remember what play it was, though!), and we went to an off-Broadway production in 1985, and I met Dick Van Dyke coming down next to him after it was over. In fact, I found my ticket for that recently--a happy memory! As a fun point of reference, the seats were $35.

[tjwash]

21. Guys and dolls.

With Maurice Hines, the late Gregorys brother

[Waverley_Hills_Hiker]

22. Holy Ghosts

Its not a comedy, but after seeing it I understood the born again experience a bit better....

[DemoTex]

23. Stacy Keach in "Macbeth" at the Folger Shakespeare Theater in DC in 1996.

What a performance of a 400 year-old play! Keach won the Helen Hayes Award for his performance in that run of Macbeth.

[Kat45]

24. Al Pacino in David Mamet's 'American Buffalo" in Boston

I enjoyed the play, and Pacino was great!

I also enjoyed "Waiting for Godot" with Mark Linn-Baker, and I think the other guy may have been Tony Shaloub, but I'm not certain. (He wasn't well-known back then, but I remember later reading that he was in that play at the ART, so it might have been him.) The play was done more as a comedy, IIRC, and it was quite good.

[skrunch]

35. I wanted to see that in NYC...

...but it was sold out. So we saw Lanford Wilson's "Fifth Of July" with Swoosie Kurtz and Michael O'Keefe instead.

"...what the fuck for, dial 1?"

[Insider]

26. The Wiz

not sure if musicals count, but that play was beautiful. the scenery, the costumes, the music. it was most memorable.

mabel king, ted ross, deedee bridgewater, andre deshields, hinton battle


but most of all GEOFFREY HOLDER & GEORGE FAISON put on a helluva show.

1975 tony awards:
best musical
book of a musical
costume design - holder
choreography - faison
director - musical (holder)
featured actor - musical (ted ross)
featured actress - musical (deedee bridgewater

[thestatusquo]

27. Les MIS!

Can't beat it! My favorite character is Eponine, screw Cossette!

[Snoggera]

29. Medea

San Francisco

a few years ago.

[SarahB]

30. The Caine Mutiny

I've seen many plays (especially growing up) and while I love musicals, I remember seeing the when I was 11 or 12 maybe and it was the first big drama I went to see. Loved it.

[Harrumph]

31. Torchsong Trilogy

At the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles. Teeny tiny Estelle Getty played the mother and she was great. A very moving play.
:smoke:

[ZenLefty]

32. Macbeth - Denver Center for the Performing Arts - around 1996

There was no background and very few props; all their money went into costume, making it very simplistic yet highly dramatic. The stage was a wooden platform slanted out to the audience, ringed with layers of skulls. The actors, of course, did an incredible job of capturing the emotions and moods of the players, something that I think is lost on the average high school glossing-over of this brilliant story. And the scene with Banquo's ghost pretty much made everyone in the audience gasp aloud, even though we all knew he was dead. Never seen better.

[democracyindanger]

33. Macbeth - Ashland, OR

Passing through, bought a last-minute ticket, lucked out in a box seat.

[Tom Kitten]

34. Ah Jeez!

I saw "The Importance of Being Ernest" by Oscar Wilde a long while back in Ashland...along with "Othello"...both were absolutely top-notch!
A few years later I saw "Dark of the Moon"...in Portland, a very well done play with a very unique storyline!

[terrya]

36. "Naked Boys Singing" at the Bailiwick Theater in Chicago.

Well, it was. :-)