Generic One Word Play Titles
Generic One Word Play Titles
#1Generic One Word Play Titles
Posted: 12/14/16 at 9:55am
What happened to the good old days of "Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf," "A Streetcar Named Desire," "All My Sons," "Long Day's Journey into Night?"
It seems like most plays these days have generic one word titles like: Eclipsed, Ruined, Sweat, Indecent, Disgraced. How is anyone supposed to keep these straight or even distinguish one from the other?
Future playwrights of the world -- please give us an interesting title. End of rant.
“I knew who I was this morning, but I've changed a few times since then.”
Updated On: 12/14/16 at 09:55 AM
BroadwayConcierge
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/24/15
#2One word generic play titles
Posted: 12/14/16 at 10:02am
Totally with you on this one, QueenAlice! Couldn't agree more.
#3One word generic play titles
Posted: 12/14/16 at 10:02am
And what alternative titles would you suggest for each play? I'd love to hear some ideas, since you seem to think you know better than several Pulitzer Prize-winning playwrights.
Did you actually see Ruined or Indecent or Disgraced? Because each of those titles have a specific meaning within the world of the play.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
#4One word generic play titles
Posted: 12/14/16 at 10:06am
I would expect the playwrights to come up with something more evocative. Yes, I saw the plays and I'm not questioning their merit, only the merit of their titles. You could essentially assign those one word titles to all the classic plays I mention in my original thread.
“I knew who I was this morning, but I've changed a few times since then.”
#5One word generic play titles
Posted: 12/14/16 at 10:10am
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Gynecologic Oncology Unit at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center of New York City
The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures
Slavs! Thinking About the Longstanding Problems of Virtue and Happiness
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike
Important Hats of the Twentieth Century
The Tale of the Allergist's Wife
The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?
The Legend of Georgia McBride
Wild Animals You Should Know
Our Mother's Brief Affair
And on and on and on. Methinks the lady doth protest too much.
Updated On: 12/14/16 at 10:10 AM
#6One word generic play titles
Posted: 12/14/16 at 10:16am
Conversely, there are hordes of famous successful plays/musicals with one word titles:
Hamlet
Macbeth
Othello
Matilda
Annie
Mame
Gypsy
Candide
Pygmalion
Tartuffe
Wicked
Hairspray
Chicago
Equus
Hair
Again: and on and on and on.
#7One word generic play titles
Posted: 12/14/16 at 10:25am
QueenAlice said: "I would expect the playwrights to come up with something more evocative. Yes, I saw the plays and I'm not questioning their merit, only the merit of their titles. You could essentially assign those one word titles to all the classic plays I mention in my original thread.
"
I'm still waiting to hear some of your suggestions for more acceptable titles.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
#8One word generic play titles
Posted: 12/14/16 at 10:41am
Eclipsed: Five Liberian Ladies Loathing Life
Ruined: Everybody Comes To Mama Nadi's
Sweat: A Rural Pennsylvania Working Class Tragedy
Indecent: Don't Put Lesbians On Broadway
Disgraced: Stop Me If You've Heard This One: A Muslim, An African-American, A Jew, And A WASP Sit Down To Dinner Together...
#9One word generic play titles
Posted: 12/14/16 at 10:45am
DISGRACED:
The Portrait of Amir
Defense of the Imam
The Word of God
Advantage of Assimilation
“I knew who I was this morning, but I've changed a few times since then.”
#10One word generic play titles
Posted: 12/14/16 at 10:50am
Mine is so much better than any of yours, Alice.
Updated On: 12/14/16 at 10:50 AM
#11One word generic play titles
Posted: 12/14/16 at 10:51am
Those are terrible titles that lack the punch of one well-chosen word.
When I see the phrase "the ____ estate", I imagine a vast mansion in the country full of monocled men and high-collared women receiving letters about productions across the country and doing spit-takes at whatever they contain.
-Kad
#12One word generic play titles
Posted: 12/14/16 at 10:53am
QueenAlice said: "DISGRACED:
The Portrait of Amir
Defense of the Imam
The Word of God
Advantage of Assimilation
"
Well, I don't know if I've ever encountered a clearer example of "less is more."
Don't quit your day job.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
#13One word generic play titles
Posted: 12/14/16 at 10:55am
Indecent: Don't Put Lesbians On Broadway
I prefer Bulldykes Over Broadway
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
#14One word generic play titles
Posted: 12/14/16 at 10:56am
I'm not pretending to be a writer and like I said I think the plays are great. I'm just having a discourse dialogue on the validity of a singular title. Sure you could argue that there is power in the punch of one chosen word (and to Newintown's post - I think those are great titles - but they aren't one word verbs) but to me RUINED, DISGRACED, INDECENT, blah blah could pretty much be applied to any play that has ever been written.
“I knew who I was this morning, but I've changed a few times since then.”
#15One word generic play titles
Posted: 12/14/16 at 10:57am
"I prefer Bulldykes Over Broadway"
Only with an exclamation point!
#16One word generic play titles
Posted: 12/14/16 at 11:03am
Perhaps we should play another game. Write your own plot based on these wonderfully evocative play titles:
RUN
TRASHED
BEACHED
DOWN
JUMPED
POOP
“I knew who I was this morning, but I've changed a few times since then.”
#17One word generic play titles
Posted: 12/14/16 at 11:08am
"I think those are great titles - but they aren't one word verbs"
Oh, the parameters shift! So it's only titles comprised of single verbs (present or past tense) that annoy? That would make Indecent acceptable. Unless single adjectives are also out. So single nouns are good; single verbs and adjectives are out? What about adverbs, gerunds, or conjunctions?
Spreading our net wide, how are these?
If (Kipling)
Kidnapped (Stevenson)
The novels of Henry Green (Loving, Living, Concluding, etc.)
Trainspotting (novel, play, and film)
Red (play and film)
Frozen
#18One word generic play titles
Posted: 12/14/16 at 11:15am
Those titles are wonderful. They are evocative. But if FROZEN and WICKED were were called DISGRACED and RUINED (which they could just as easily be) I would have a problem.
“I knew who I was this morning, but I've changed a few times since then.”
#19One word generic play titles
Posted: 12/14/16 at 11:19am
RUN - the musical version of Forrest Gump; score by Andrew Lippa
TRASHED - a young woman climbing the corporate ladder is temporarily undone by addiction issues; while homeless, she learns the true meaning of life from her fellow bums, and makes a comeback marketing Skid Row-chic housewares, fashions, and furnishings.
BEACHED - a la Hands On A Hardbody, a group of disparate clichéd characters each get to sing their own hackneyed song while attempting to rescue a stranded whale in Malibu. Spoiler alert: the whale dies.
DOWN - an evening of monologues about oral sex.
JUMPED - A daredevil (played by Andy Karl) seeks exceedingly higher and more dangerous places from which to freejump, until he finally meets that one special woman (Annaleigh Ashford) who makes him want to remain on the ground.
POOP - a delightful review of numbers from the worst shows of the past decade (Finding Neverland, Amazing Grace, American Psycho, Tuck Everlasting, Doctor Zhivago, It Shoulda Been You, The Last Ship, Big Fish, First Date, etc.)
Updated On: 12/14/16 at 11:19 AM
#20One word generic play titles
Posted: 12/14/16 at 11:21am
Now see those plots actually fit their one word generic titles. Bravo Newintown! Next time I will pick titles with less meaning :)
“I knew who I was this morning, but I've changed a few times since then.”
Auggie27
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/13/03
#21One word generic play titles
Posted: 12/14/16 at 1:16pm
On the other hand, "Time Stands Still" might've been "Maim."
"I'm a comedian, but in my spare time, things bother me." Garry Shandling
henrikegerman
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/29/05
#22One word generic play titles
Posted: 12/14/16 at 1:58pm
"The [ahem] "Good" old days" had, ahem, "Plenty" of one word titles.
(some of these are known in English by two word titles which include an article but in their original language their titles were simply one word)
Frogs
Birds
Thirst
Fog
Abortion
Baal
Machinal
Ile
Exorcism
Icebound
Winterset
Picnic
Seascape
Rope
Servitude
Gold
Welded
Dynamo
Jitney
Fences
Closer
Theatre
Rain
Streamers
Orphans
Travesties
Jumpers
Luv
Lovers
Indians
Da
Wings
Home
Footfalls
Play
Rockaby
Endgame
Arcadia
Shadowlands
Benefactors
Plenty
Bent
Betrayal
Easter
Aristocrats
Equus
Fools
Rumors
Saved
Sirocco
Cavalcade
Good
Perestroika
Quadrille
Ghosts
Seagull
Updated On: 12/14/16 at 01:58 PM
#23One word generic play titles
Posted: 12/14/16 at 2:11pm
And to be clear - I have no problem with one word play titles. As many examples have been cited - a brilliant one word choice when it is truly evocative is indeed a very powerful punch.
I'm nagging on plays that seem pretentious in their one word non specificity.
Imagine if instead of HAMLET we got a play called ANGST
Or instead of HEDDA GABBLER we got BOREDOM
or instead of CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF we got a play called WEAKNESS
My argument is that the playwright is not doing their play any service by calling it something like DISGRACED or RUINED. Those titles could be used for almost any play with a central conflict in them.
“I knew who I was this morning, but I've changed a few times since then.”
TerrenceIsTheMann
Broadway Star Joined: 9/28/15
#24One word generic play titles
Posted: 12/14/16 at 2:20pm
One word titles can be perfect, like PROOF for instance.
henrikegerman
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/29/05
#25One word generic play titles
Posted: 12/14/16 at 2:23pm
^Or DOUBT or RUINED
Updated On: 12/14/16 at 02:23 PM
