Closet Drama

This post is not about gay theater (although when my professor wrote 'closet drama' on the board last week, that was my first thought).  Instead, it's about theater and drama as a school of literature.  Man, do I sound smart!

I just finished -- well, I have to send my take-home final back by three-o-clock on Tuesday, but don't rain on my parade -- my most painful class ever.  EVER.  Not just of graduate school, but of all classes, ever, in my life.  I won't get into details; I might need some references some day in the future, but it was a painful class.  Imagine getting talked AT for three hours, twice a week, and about half of that time is spent telling stories that don't relate to class (and, I'm convinced, are all made up!).  There was very little discussion, we lost points on reading quizzes -- yes, I took reading quizzes in my grad class -- if we disagreed with his opinion, and he gave me a B+/A- on my short paper.  You need to pick!  That's a pretty wide span of points... VENT VENT VENT.   Okay, I'm better now.

Regardless, last night was the final class of the semester, and although we all ran out the door, I did take a few interesting tidbits with me.  Closet Drama has nothing to do with homosexuality; instead, it refers to a genre of drama that is meant to be read, or done in a small group reading.  They weren't intended for the stage, although some have now become stage performances.  Faust, for instance, by Goethe, was written as a closet drama.

I was never thrilled about reading plays.  I think my first real experience with it was The Miracle Worker in 7th grade, and I recall doing a lot of acting and watching film clips.  Then we moved on to Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream in 8th grade and Romeo and Juliet in 9th, but again, we mostly just acted things out or watched the movie.  In tenth grade we listened to The Merchant of Venice, but I won't go into that because I've already ranted and raved enough.  My first real interaction with drama was with Hamlet and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf in my AP class senior year.  That was the first time we read drama as a work of literature instead of script.

My point is that reading drama isn't structured well in most instances.  When I teach A Raisin in the Sun, I have students analyze stage directions, and I'm always amazed when they don't know what those are.  Reading 8 plays over the past 5 weeks has been enlightening; there needs to be a better way to teach drama.  It also opened my eyes to the idea that not all drama should be performed.

In context, I was given free tickets to two shows last week; I saw the new Neil Labute play Reasons to be Pretty on Sunday, and Angels in American, Part 1 on Wednesday night.  I was introduced to Labute during my summer course; we read two of his plays from Bash, which were beautifully written, interesting and deep pieces, based on ancient Greek plays.  I was thrilled about free tickets to the show.

I think, deep down, Labute is a closet dramatist.  It wasn' that the play was bad, but I found myself wanting to read it instead of watching it played out in front of me.  The actors were good, the staging was good, the music felt slightly after-school special, but I really couldn't get into it.  I found myself wondering if I would have enjoyed it more had I read the play first.  Much like turning a book into a movie, taking a script and turning it into an actual performance can be a let down.  There are so many interpretations out there -- I did my final project on Antigone, and there have been countless productions of that play done in a variety of ways, based on the vision of the director.  Are we teaching kids to be lazy by simply showing the film?

I found myself wanting a copy of the script, to follow along, or to go back over on my way home.  I wanted to see if the production was just missing something, or if I honestly just didn't really love the play.  There was so much potential there, I just wanted to analyze it, word for word, get something out of it that I couldn't get from watching 4 people yell at each other on the stage.

Angels in America, on the other hand?  AMAZING. I'm dying to read it, but for a completely different reason.  I'm attempting to broaden my horizons when it comes to literature.  My 52 books list included non-fiction for that very reason; I don't read enough of certain genres, drama included.  SO for my summer reading list, which will branch off of my 52 books list, I want drama suggestions.  Any plays you think are worth checking out, let me know.  I'm trying here!