Who are the best playwrights besides the Bard?

Racine, as far as tragedy goes. Still isn’t close though.

Calderón de la Barca, yo.

SEGISMUNDO

¡Ay mísero de mí, y ay, infelice!

Apurar, cielos, pretendo,
ya que me tratáis así
qué delito cometí
contra vosotros naciendo;
aunque si nací, ya entiendo
qué delito he cometido.
Bastante causa ha tenido
vuestra justicia y rigor;
pues el delito mayor
del hombre es haber nacido.

Sólo quisiera saber
para apurar mis desvelos
(dejando a una parte, cielos,
el delito de nacer),
qué más os pude ofender
para castigarme más.
¿No nacieron los demás?
Pues si los demás nacieron,
¿qué privilegios tuvieron
qué yo no gocé jamás?

Nace el ave, y con las galas
que le dan belleza suma,
apenas es flor de pluma
o ramillete con alas,
cuando las etéreas salas
corta con velocidad,
negándose a la piedad
del nido que deja en calma;
¿y teniendo yo más alma,
tengo menos libertad?

I don't speak that vulgar language.

Brecht
youtube.com/watch?v=_AJQlRmJvLA

Moliere, Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripedes, Lorca, Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, Corneille, Racine, Chekhov, Ibsen, Goethe

I forgot Beckett

Pirandellol

This guy

Brecht is the worst thing that happend to theatre
>t. hasn't read Goethe
his plays arent that great desu (if you dont count Faust as a 'play') Schiller was the far superior playwright, also Kleist and Büchner wrote some excellent plays - for something more modern check out Dürrenmatt

Cocteau and Garcia Lorca

I'm not overly-impressed with modern stage plays (the cinema is where the talent and creativity went).

That said, here's my pick for the two best plays of the 20th century, in no particular order:

Dylan Thomas, Under Milk Wood
Samuel Beckett, Waiting For Godot

Racine and Corneille as far as tragedy goes.

Ibsen
Wilde

Brecht was vastly overrated because he was a good communist. The reason none of his plays get revived is because they are shit as drama. I can't think of anyone that has fallen so quickly from such a central place in the repertoire, apart maybe from Shaw

Correct.

Brecht: I know, let's insult the audience and betray their trust and laugh at their willing suspension of disbelief when they're only trying to cooperate with me.
Audience: Doesn't that just make you a, you know, bad dramatist?
Brecht: No, because I'm doing it IRONICALLY. Let's call it... err... ALIENATION!
Audience:
Brecht: Peasants.

...Many years later...

Jean-Luc Godard: Hey, this Brecht fellow hates the bourgeoisie as much as me! Let's use all the techniques that made him so universally loved!
Audience:

THE END

this

But how I wanted for a new sensation and avid hunger for plays written in verses and filled with metaphors to spring once more into the world, so that writers like Shakespeare and Aeschylus would had a new chance to dawn.

he wasnt even that good of a commie desu, he never joined a party or really committed to the cause when shit got tight, he just needed commie ideology as an ideological basis for his work
ye it sucks, problem is, I have worked in theatre and I can tell you that Brechts approach is still very much alive and well

True. Mother Courage, for instance, is frequently revived and dare I say it? A good play.

pls be bait

Godot isn't even Beckett's best play is the impressive thing

what is non-aristoliean drama for 800 Alex?

The story is never the point in Brecht's work. He was actively trying to push ideas and an agenda. Even that aside, if you can read Mother Courage and think its not great, I genuinely feel bad for you.

It may be irritating but what can we do? We can't go back to well made English plays done properly, with every production being like the Mousetrap.
Brecht's directorial innovations will last much longer than his plays I think and will be what he is remembered for.

Can you point out his innovations? Never read one of his plays.

The very dumbed down version:
Before Brecht: fourth wall constantly maintained, drama essentially played straight, without drawing unnecessary attention to the artifice of theatre. Audience suspends disbelief: we are watching Hamlet who is Prince of Denmark
Brecht changed all that, you could now be post modern, break the fourth wall, engage the audience directly in the drama, use the artificiality of theatre as a device in itself. Audience is encouraged to not suspend disbelief: we are watching a theatre company put on a performance of the famous play hamlet, and this chap with a knife is an actor pretending to be a Prince.
Whether for better or worse is up to you, but modern theatrical practice is unthinkable without brecht. That said I find most of his actual plays tediously ideological, like being ranted at by a bore (which brecht would probably be pleased with)

So, basically a Godardian approach to cinema? How disapointing, was expecting actually innovations, not mere tricks for those devoid of genius. Ideological marxists that filled their "art" with manifestos will wither; for " Vivitur Ingenio Caetera Mortis Erunt." Shakespeare, Calderon, Goethe, Tarkovsky and Angelopoulos will be remebered for the true breath of eternity present in their works. Godard and Bretch will have their memorie sunken by the incessant course of the river of time.

This is an awful post. You could not better communicate your lack of understanding with that cringy little shit of a dialogue you wrote.

I only meant to count Faust. I'll check out Dürrenmatt, Kleist, and Büchner.

Angelo Beolco called Ruzante

>says in english, the evolution of germanic grunts with some latin vocabulary from the superior French nobles
lul.

>Moliere
Very good taste

I like Peer Gynt by Ibsen a lot. I also think Arther Miller is very good. Death of a salesman was great. However I have this problem- I cannot read plays unless I have seen them live or a very good television adaptation where they film the play from the audience perspective. Only then can I visualize is while reading it. Anyone else have this problem?

>But how I wanted for a new sensation and avid hunger for plays written in verses and filled with metaphors to spring once more into the world, so that writers like Shakespeare and Aeschylus would had a new chance to dawn.

This will never happen again in history

Calderon de la Barca and Lope de Vega were both better than Shekespeare.

Nope.

This is stupid patriotism, and nothing more.

I myself am not British and not even a native English speaker, but I have read the tree of them and Shakespeare is by far superior, even if we join Lope and Calderon in one single entity.

The fact is that Shakespeare's verse line was longer and didn't depend so often of rhyme, so he had space and flexibility to work on more complex patterns of thought and imagery.

Also, his gift for metaphoric creation - metaphors beeing the greatest thing in poetry - is unsurpassed.

Finally, Shakespeare's work is more varied, presenting more characters, more life-philosophies, more scenes and themes.

It's not even fair to beggin a fight between Shakespeare and any other dramatist.

Ethically? Haven't read Lope de Vega. But Shakespeare is far superior to Calderon, aesthetically.

Not disagreeing here (very interesting post), I just wanted to point out a neat 4th wall-breaking moment in Shakespeare, the opening to Henry V, where he reference the Globe Theatre (this wooden O) :

CHORUS: O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention,
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,
Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire
Crouch for employment. But pardon, and gentles all,
The flat unraised spirits that have dared
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
So great an object: can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?

...

He’s unironically the best American playwright since Miller.

The Mount Rushmore of English Renaissance drama is Shakespeare, Marlowe, Jonson, and Middleton (with Webster as runner up)

The big three of Spen: Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, Pedro Calderón de la Barca. Their masterpieces are Fuenteovejuna, El burlador de Sevilla, and La vida es sueño, respectively !!

O'Neill is the greatest American dramatist ever

Moliere and Ibsen.