Category: Drama

Drama Study: Top Girls

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Mixing fantasy and reality, using a nonlinear construction, and featuring overlapping dialogue as women speak across, on top of, and around one another, Top Girls is both unique and difficult. Beginning with a surreal, imaginary dinner party scene that celebrates the promotion of Marlene to managing director of Top Girls Employment Agency, Churchill asks questions about what it takes for a woman to be successful, and to what extent 20th century Feminism has equaled out historical injustices for women.

Drama Study: The Visit by Friedrich Dürrenmatt

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FRom the pRL / translated work (German) / C20TH / Europe / switzerland “He considers it a part of his philosophical business to reach a mass audience through his [works] without diluting that one main idea which permeates much of his writing: justice.” William Gillis, writing in the […]

Drama Study: Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet

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Glengarry Glen Ross is a Pulitzer prize-winning play by David Mamet. It tells the story of a group of salesmen working for a dubious real-estate firm. Head office has a shock in store for the men: a new sales competition is being launched. The top prize is a new Cadillac car. But, in a week’s time, anyone who’s not performing will be fired.

Drama Study: Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw

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When George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1925, he was praised for turning “his weapons against everything that he conceives of as prejudice.” This is clearly true of Pygmalion, which was premiered in German in Vienna in 1913. The play is a modern interpretation of an ancient myth, the tale of Pygmalion and Galatea. In Shaw’s rendition, Higgins, a teacher, “creates” Eliza, his pupil, by teaching her to speak like a duchess – a transformation that allows Shaw to attack the superficial class prejudices of his time.