Non-Realistic Plays (Not Musicals)

[broadwaybelter]

Posted: 11/5/08 at 8:37pm

Can anyone suggest any Non-Realistic plays? I'm familiar with authors such as: Albee, Pinter, Ionesco, etc. Anything would be helpful.
Updated On: 11/5/08 at 08:37 PM

[PiraguaGuy2]

Posted: 11/5/08 at 8:38pm

Alice in Wonderland

[givesmevoice]

Posted: 11/5/08 at 9:22pm

Happy Days, by Samuel Beckett.

[Ed_Mottershead]

Posted: 11/5/08 at 9:23pm

The Skin of Our Teeth. It's been too long since it's been revived in NYC and is a lot of fun.

[Taryn]

Posted: 11/5/08 at 9:24pm

Anything by Sarah Ruhl

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 11/5/08 at 9:53pm

Ruhl's plays start out realistic. That's the charm of them.

[dramamama611]

Posted: 11/5/08 at 10:39pm

How about some Sam Shepard. Gotta love when a main character pees on stage!

[gilvisto]

Posted: 11/5/08 at 10:43pm

The Glass Menagerie.

[once a month]

Posted: 11/6/08 at 8:18am

Personally, I'm drawn to the slightly more offbeat...such as Equus, M Butterfly, Indiscretians and The Goat, Who Is Sylvia.

[lovepigeon]

Posted: 11/6/08 at 8:32am

Pirandello. Six Characters and The Man With the Flower in his Mouth are awesome.

Botho Strauss' Seven Doors is excellent too... the woman with the house in her house is just too bizarre.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 11/6/08 at 9:35am

Our Town

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 11/6/08 at 10:24am

Pretty much anything by Durang.

And props for the mention of "The Skin of Our Teeth." That's one of my favorite plays of all time.

[Bobby Maler]

Posted: 11/6/08 at 10:38am

What do you mean by "I'm familiar with..."? Do you only want recommendations from those playwrights? "Rhinoceros" is the most famous Ionesco play.


I third "Skin of Our Teeth." Also look at Strindberg's "A Dream Play" and Stoppard's "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead." I also love "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf."

Of course, there's also the granddaddy of them all, "Waiting for Godot" coming to the Roundabout.

[Mealz1042]

Posted: 11/6/08 at 3:40pm

what is this for? Like when you say not realistic, like fantasy? metaphor? Because I would definitely suggest Angels in America but I'm not positive if it fits what you're looking for.

[nobodyhome]

Posted: 11/6/08 at 4:04pm

In addition to other stuff that's been mentioned (I know I have a couple of repeats in here too):

Büchner: Leonce and Lena, Wozzeck
Grabbe: Jest, Satire, Irony and Deeper Significance
Strindberg: A number of plays including A Dream Play and The Ghost Sonata
Ibsen: Peer Gynt
Anything by Maeterlinck, Ionesco, Beckett, Genet
Durrenmatt: The Visit (especially in the original version as translated by Patrick Bowles, less so in the adaptation by Maurice Valency)
Lots of stuff though not everything by Pinter
Rice: The Adding Machine
Wedekind: Spring Awakening, The Lulu Plays
Anything by Witkiewicz
Guare: Landscape of the Body, Rich and Famous
Albee: The American Dream, Tiny Alice, The Play About the Baby, Seascape, Box and Quotations from Chairman Mao, The Man Who Had Three Arms, among others
Shepard: Buried Child, and others
Brecht: Lots of stuff, including The Good Person (or Woman) of Setzuan, In the Jungle of Cities, Man Is Man
Handke: Kaspar
O'Neill: The Great God Brown

So much else.

[givesmevoice]

Posted: 11/6/08 at 4:09pm

I had to read The Visit in my German class and, as terrible as my German was, I loved that play.

[Patash]

Posted: 11/6/08 at 5:50pm

I'm still working on what in The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? is NOT realistic? It is normally done in a totally believable and realistic style -- no?

Sarah Ruhl's plays are wonderful -- I'm anxious to see Dead Man's Cellphone which is quite non-realistic.

[StephenSondheimWHOO]

Posted: 11/6/08 at 5:54pm

I just want to say that Skin of Our Teeth is awesome.
so, yeah

[nobodyhome]

Posted: 11/6/08 at 7:02pm

"I'm still working on what in The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? is NOT realistic? It is normally done in a totally believable and realistic style -- no?"

I'd say that The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? is one of the many plays that are in a kind of in-between area. I purposely didn't include many such plays on my list, but many people will consider those plays non-realistic.

Strictly speaking, nothing in The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? couldn't happen, but it does seem that the play is essentially metaphorical, that we're not meant to take the action literally. So many other plays fall into that category, including a number of other Albee plays, most Pinter plays, a number of Guare plays, and so on.

How realistically to act and design these plays is pretty much up to the director and actors. (Of course, that's always up to the director and actors . . . )

[hpeabody930]

Posted: 11/6/08 at 7:13pm

Cowboy Mouth by Sam Shepard.

It doesn't get much more absurd!!

[Byron Abens]

Posted: 11/7/08 at 1:09am

Jose Rivera writes some of the most beautiful magic realism out there. Marisol is a stunning piece and Cloud Tectonics quite gorgeous in its simplicity.

Posted: 11/7/08 at 3:02am

Strindberg was suggested and is a great example.

Tenn Williams' plays are always very stylized, but one of his best plays, Camino Real is definetly in this category. I'm also in love with Orpheus Descending but it's prob more in the stylized than non realisitc category (where do we draw the line?)

[broadwaybelter]

Posted: 11/7/08 at 3:18am

No line to be drawn. It was actually intended for a directing class I'm in, now I'm very interested in reading all of these texts!

Posted: 11/7/08 at 5:37am

Love yoru avatar, btw

I dunno, it always interests me. Someone listed Glass Menagerie which Williams called a "Memory Play" but, I'd still classify it as more or less realistic--but maybe some wouldn't?

I just thought of one of my faves, which I did a student directed production of. Cloud Nine by Caryl Churchill. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_Nine_(play) has a lot about it. I believe Tommy Tune actually directed the slightly revised New York production and got a lot of acclaim for it (Maury Yeston doing the incidental music)

It definetly fits the non realistic category--although it's pretty sexually graphic if that's an issue.
Updated On: 11/7/08 at 05:37 AM

[regnad kcin]

Posted: 11/7/08 at 10:06am

My school is doing a night of Latina/o Theatre and we're presenting Jose Rivera's "Winged Man," Lynne Alvarez's "On Sundays" and Milcha Sanchez-Scott's "The Dog Lady." All of the plays involve a lot of magical realism.