The human race has been starry-eyed and stage struck ever since actors first trod the boards to honor the god Dionysius on the slopes the Acropolis millennia ago. Even the word drama itself — it means "to do" or "to act" — comes to us from the inventors of the theater, the ancient Greeks. Shakespeare, also knew his way around the theater, penning historical, comedic and tragic plays for two monarchs that gave the world new words, eternal ontological queries — "to be or not to be?" — and the best exit in history: pursued by a bear.
Whether the players are clad in togas or tights, we never seem to tire of seeing classic stories of love, hate, revenge and remorse acted out before our eyes. But it's not always easy to keep up with the output of modern dramaturges. Tickets in major metropolises go for a pretty penny these days, even for the nose-bleed seats, which is why there's something to be said for turning to the texts themselves. To that end, we've handpicked a sterling sampling of prize-winning plays that span historical epochs and run the gamut of human emotions. The audiobook editions of these productions make for the best sort of black-box theater. In the absence of sets, costumes and props, the performers' rich, expressive voices make the playwrights' language sing.
So take your seats; the curtain's about to go up.
Anna in the Tropics
Never underestimate the power of Tolstoy. That's the painful lesson learned by the characters in Nilo Cruz's Pulitzer Prize–winning play, set in a Tampa, Florida, cigar-making factory in 1929. Cuban-American exiles Ofelia and Santiago run their family business according to time-honored traditions. Workers hand roll each cigar while a lector reads to them to pass the time. However, when handsome new lector Juan Julian arrives, his selection of the classic Anna Karenina stirs up passions in his listeners as powerful as those of the novel's adulterous heroine. The couple's daughter Conchita strays from her cheating husband Palomo into the arms of Juan, while her younger sister Marela dreams of visiting Moscow to find romance. And Cheché, Santiago's half-brother, smolders sullenly in the wings, having lost his wife to another smooth-talking lector. Cruz's language is as lyrical as the Russian masters the play invokes. The heat clinging to the characters' emotions and entanglements is audible in the voices of the actors, particularly Jimmy Smits, reprising the part of Juan he played on Broadway.
M. Butterfly
Sure, they say that love is blind, but you really gotta wonder sometimes. In this Tony Award–winning riff on both Puccini's tragic opera Madama Butterfly and a real-life twisted romance, playwright Hwang structures the story of Rene Gallimard so it unfolds in flashback. The French functionary is posted to the embassy in China during that nation's involvement in the Vietnam War. There he falls for an opera diva, Song Liling, little realizing his lover is actually a spy for the Chinese government — and, as is traditional in Chinese opera, also a man. Led astray by Song, Rene encourages the French to act on false information about the war and is sent home in disgrace. Song follows him to France where, unbelievably, they live together for 20 years before Rene's treason — and his lover's true gender — is discovered. John Lithgow and B.D. Wong reprise their original roles from the production, joined by comedian Margaret Cho as Song's cynical Chinese comrade.
Waiting for Godot
"We are all born mad. Some of us remain so," Estragon observes in act two of Samuel Beckett's notoriously knotty play. Called Didi by his companion Vladimir, whom he calls Gogo, Estragon passes the first act waiting for Godot by taking off his boot and quibbling and quarreling with Vladimir. Their circular squabbles are interrupted by the arrival of pompous Pozzo and his lackey Lucky, whom he keeps on a leash. The second pair departs and, as night falls, a Boy arrives to inform Didi and Gogo that Godot will come tomorrow. In act two, which takes place an unspecified length of time after the first, they wait under the same tree. Pozzo, now blind, returns in the company of a mute Lucky, before a Boy arrives once more bearing bad news. Grim, yes, but in 1988, comedians Steve Martin and Robin Williams exposed the humor at the heart of Beckett's masterpiece in a production at Lincoln Center, a feat the less-famous audio cast repeats here.
Twelve Angry Men
In a cramped jurors' room on a hot August afternoon, 12 men drawn from all walks of life must sit in judgment on a fellow citizen who's far from model. A blowhard pushes to condemn the defendant because he has tickets to that night's ballgame. Another opines that he knows how "those people" are. When the foreman calls the first vote, it's eleven-to-one to convict. The lone holdout, the never-named Juror Eight, resists a quick decision of guilty, much to the frustration of his peers. With quiet determination, he walks the other jurors back through the details of the case to explain why his reasonable doubt exists. This gripping American drama first saw the light of day as a teleplay in 1957, but soon after it leapt from the cathode-ray confines of the small screen to the bright lights of Broadway and later Hollywood. Dan Castellaneta (yes, the voice of everyman Homer J. Simpson) and his cast mates deliver riveting performances.
The Crucible
Arthur Miller has no patience for witch hunts. The Crucible, his attack on McCarthyism and the anti-Communist fervor then sweeping the nation, bowed on Broadway in 1953. Miller's tale takes us back to an earlier era of hysteria and persecution: Salem, Massachusetts, in the 1690s. When girls fall ill after being discovered dancing around a fire in the woods with black slave Tituba, rumors of witchcraft quickly spread. To save themselves from punishment, the girls, led by manipulative Abigail Williams, accuse those who have crossed them of being witches. John Proctor, who had an affair with Abigail, suspects they are faking their violent fits in the courtroom. Only after his wife is brought before the courts does John move to denounce his former lover as a liar. Forget the flashbacks to high school homework; the all-star audio cast delivers a harrowing indictment of naming names.
Proof
Winner of the 2001 Tony award for Best Play and the 2001 Pulitzer Prize, Proof takes on the seemingly impossible problem of turning mathematical equations into gripping drama and solves it, elegantly. College dropout Catherine came home to care for her famous father, a brilliant but mad University of Chicago mathematician who, even in death, looms large in her life. In one of the notebooks filled with his ravings her father's young protégé, Hal, discovers the proof to a once-thought unsolvable equation. He is first elated, and then supremely skeptical when self-taught Catherine claims that the work is actually hers, not her gaga da-da's. Auburn leaves us wondering along with Hal where the truth lies, while Catherine and her capable older sister struggle to make sure she doesn't succumb to the same insanity that claimed her father. Real-life former crazy Anne Heche plays Catherine opposite Jeremy Sisto's suspicious, secretly smitten Hal.
Contact Us | Message Boards | Download Manager | Gift Subscriptions | Affiliate Program | About eMusic
© 2008 Muze Inc. For personal non-commercial use only. All rights reserved.
Portions of this content may be property of Baker & Taylor, Inc. or its licensors and shall be subject to copyright and all other protections under the law.