Tynan's Anger

Each month, I will be unrolling a top 10 list regarding English-language drama this decade. Last month, I revealed the best lines from English-language plays this decade [Part One] [Part Two] [Part Three]. This month, I will be unveiling the best characters to emerge in Engish-language drama this decade. Because of the complications of such a list; I have broken it into three categories

1. Original Characters
2. Historical Characters (a.k.a. characters based on real life people)
3. Reinterpreted characters: Characters Who Are Fictional But Have Appeared in Other Plays or Media Previously.

On Monday, we begin with the Top 5 Reinterpreted Characters in English-Language Drama This Decade.

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5. Peter (Peter and Jerry, Edward Albee)
Edward Albee solves some unfinished business in his sequel to his 1958 classic Zoo Story—giving a character the chance to explain himself that Albee fans had craved for half a century.

4. Eurydice (Eurydice, Sarah Ruhl) Greek mythical heroes are being updated all the time, but by turning Eurydice into a sweet girl who’s tragic trait is being “interesting” is particularly inspired, especially since Ruhl manages to avoid getting too fey.

3. Moritz Stiefel (Spring Awakening, book & lyrics by Steven Sater) The character once deemed to disturbing to even touch the Fringes of New York theater became the decade’s biggest icon for depressed teenagers in American theater.

2. Franz Liebkind (The Producers, book by Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan) Brad Oscar may never escape the life he gave to this character, but his performance and Brooks and Meehan’s reinterpretation may have been the only character to literally cause attendees to roll in the aisles on an almost nightly basis.

1. Aunt Esther (King Hedley II & Gem of the Ocean, August Wilson) Posthumously, we can look at August Wilson Pittsburgh Cycle in the fictional order; in real life we watched the death of the spiritual center of his body of work in his most obtusely tragic work; her role as one of the most crucial characters in African-American literature was sealed by her origin story seen just a few years later on Broadway.

Labels: august wilson, edward albee, Eurydice, franz liebkind, gem of the ocean, king headley ii, mel brooks, peter and jerry, Producers, sarah ruhl, Spring Awakening, zoo story

So after years of loudly and obnoxiously bashing Harold Pinter to anyone who cared (or to people who didn't) I'm finally starting to see the error of my ways. University Theater here at the U of C did a fantastic rendition of The Homecoming, convincing enough that I'm tempted to see it again on Broadway. My bias towards Pinter largely comes from my father (if you've ever seen The Squid and the Whale, a lot of my opinions come from the same vein as arguing that A Tale of Two Cities is minor Dickens), and the fact that my the first Pinter play I ever saw was his first, The Room, which, while mirroring the chronology of the theater world's introduction to Pinter, is not exactly an easy introduction to a playwright for a 17 year old.

Probably another factor was that I was exposed to David Mamet at roughly the same time as Pinter. While both playwrights tend to use dialog as a weapon, Mamet is much more grounded in reality and easier to digest, and hence I naturally felt the assert Mamet's superiority in the theater of menace. Now, of course, with four years of college in me, I can come up with more sources of comparison. I see the parallels to Beckett, Ionesco, and the Angry Young Man movement. I see more apt American parallels than Mamet, such as Edward Albee and Sam Shepard (Buried Child, in my mind, is Pinter with a Midwestern accent). I can even see parallels with the more comical but still emotionally jarring playwrights like Joe Orton and Tom Stoppard. I still think Philip Roth deserves a Nobel Prize more, but I am less inclined to dismiss Pinter's Noble Prize outright. I also now really want to see Sleuth, and am frustrated that I don't have it On Demand in my apartment.

Labels: angry young man, david mamet, edward albee, eugene ionseco, harold pintet, joe orton, philip roth, sam shepard, samuel beckett, sleuth, the homecoming, tom stoppard