72 Playwrights
229 Plays
You must select three plays to do a play analysis on. No one student in a class can
choose the same play and you cannot select a play we are working on this year. On a
specific date set by me you will present to the class in the most creative and
interesting way possible your play analysis.
Play Analysis
Analysis: Separation of anything into constituent parts, elements, or components, or an
examination of anything to distinguish its parts, separately, or in their relation to the whole
(Webster's International Dictionary, 2 ed., 1949).
Play Analysis: Examination of a play to (1) identify its component parts, (2) explain their
arrangement, and deduce the meaning that arises from them and their relation to the whole.
Assignment: Create an analysis of the two plays you have selected from the list below.
Assume that the viewer is familiar with the events and characters of the play, but that he/she
has neither analyzed it nor formed conclusions as to its meaning. Cite evidence or examples
to support your claims. Include the six essential elements of a play analysis:
1. PLOT: using the Plot Analysis outline on the back of this page, analyze the plot.
2. CHARACTERS: using the Character Analysis outline, analyze the characters. For item 1,
identify traits, you may substitute the chart of traits found on the second page of
"Boxes." Just refer to the chart in your essay.
3. THOUGHT: Explain the nature of the world created by the playwright. What forces
operate in this situation? What does it mean to be a human being in this world? What
threatens the characters? What solutions are available? How are problems resolved, if
they are resolved at all? What sort of feelings are aroused by these characters, these
events?
4. DICTION (LANGUAGE): Describe the play's language and any "pleasurable
accessories" associated with it. Prose or poetry? Poetry: rhymed or unrhymed?
metrical or free? imitative of daily speech or highly manipulated? Prose: rhythm
imitative of daily speech or highly manipulated? Both: dialect and vocabulary of daily
life or elevated/manipulated? relationship of character and diction?
5. MUSIC: Describe the playwright's choices regarding rhythm, time, and sound. Include
examples of rhythmic repetitions of sounds, words, lines, or scenes; hurried or
leisurely speech or movement; music or sound effects.
6. SPECTACLE: Describe important elements of the settings and explain how each should
appear to create appropriate mood and atmosphere and assist the communication of
idea. Explain whether the setting is necessary or significant to the events or ideas of
the play or is merely appropriate background. Describe other important elements of
spectacle.
SUMMARY: What does all this add up to? On the basis of the evidence you have described
above, explain as fully as you can the meaning (particular point, general truth, argument, or
proposition) embodied by the playwright in the selection and arrangement of the materials
of this play.
THE AMERICANS:
O'NEILL: Ah, Wilderness!; Long Day's Journey Into Night; The
Iceman Cometh; The Emporer Jones; Desire Under the Elms
RICE: Street Scene; The Adding Machine
KAUFMAN AND HART: You Can't Take It With You; The Man Who
Came to Dinner
ODETS: Waiting for Lefty; Awake and Sing; Golden Boy
SHERWOOD: The Petrified Forest
HELLMAN: The Children's Hour; The Little Foxes
STEINBECK: Of Mice and Men
WILDER: Our Town; The Skin of Our Teeth; The Matchmaker
WILLIAMS: The Glass Menagerie; Summer and Smoke; A
Streetcar Named Desire; Cat On a Hot Tin Roof
MILLER: Death of a Salesman; The Crucible: A View from the
Bridge; The Price
SIMON: Barefoot in the Park; Lost in Yonkers; The Odd Couple;
The Sunshine Boys
ALBEE: The Zoo Story; The Death of Bessie Smith; The American
Dream; Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?; A Delicate Balance
BARAKA (JONES): Dutchman
HANSBURY: A Raisin in the Sun; The Sign in Sidney Brustein's
Window
LANFORD WILSON: Hot I Baltimore; Balm in Gilead; The Rimers
of Eldritch; The Fifth of July
SHEPHERD: True West; Curse of the Strarving Class; Buried
Child
RABE: Streamers; Sticks and Bones; The Basic Training of Pavel
Hummel
MAMET: Sexual Perversity in Chicago; American Buffalo;
Glengarry Glenn Ross; Speed-the-Plow
HENLEY: Crimes of the Heart; The Miss Firecracker Contest
AUGUST WILSON: Fences; Ma Rainey's Black Bottom; The Piano
Lesson; Two Train's Running
KRAMER: The Normal Heart
WASSERSTEIN: The Heidi Chronicles; The Sisters Rosenweig
The BRITISH:
ANONYMOUS: Everyman; The Second Shepherd's Play
BEN JOHNSON: Volpone; The Alchemist
MARLOWE: Edward II; Dr. Faustus
SHAKESPEARE: Hamlet; Julius Caesar; Othello; Macbeth; King
Lear; Romeo and Juliet; Twelfth Night; As You Like It; A
Midsummer Night's Dream; The Tempest; Much Ado About
Nothing; Richard II; Henry IV Parts 1 and 2; Henry V; Richard III
BEHN: The Rover
WYCHERLEY: The Country Wife
SHERIDAN: The Rivals; The School for Scandal
GOLDSMITH: She Stoops to Conquer
WILDE: The Importance of Being Earnest; Lady Windermere's
Fan
SHAW: Pygmalion; Major Barbara; Man and Superman; Arms
and the Man; Saint Joan; Caesar and Cleopatra; Mrs. Warren's
Profession; Heartbreak Hotel
SYNGE: Playboy of the Western World
COWARD: Hay Fever; Private Lives; Blithe Spirit
BECKETT: Waiting for Godot; Endgame; Happy Days; Krapp's
Last Tape
OSBORNE: Look Back in Anger; The Entertainer
PINTER: The Caretaker; The Homecoming; The Dumbwaiter; The
Birthday Party; The Lover; The Collection
STOPPARD: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead; Travesties;
The Real Thing; Jumpers
THE RUSSIANS:
GOGOL: The Inspector General
TURGENOV: A Month in the Country
CHEKHOV: The Sea Gull; Uncle Vanya; The Three Sisters; The
Cherry Orchard; The Marriage Proposal; The Boor
THE SCANDANAVIANS:
IBSEN: Hedda Gabler; A Doll's House; Ghosts; The Master
Builder; An Enemy of the People (adapted by Arthur Miller)
STRINDBERG: Miss Julie; The Father; A Dream Play; The Ghost
Sonata
THE GREEKS AND ROMANS:
AESCHYLUS: The Oresteia Trilogy; Prometheus Bound
SOPHOCLES: Oedipus Rex; Oedipus at Colonus; Antigone;
Electra
EURIPIDES: Medea; The Trojan Women; The Bacchae;
Hyppolytus
ARISTOPHANES: The Clouds; The Frogs; Lysistrata
PLAUTUS: The Twin Manaechmi (very similar to Shakespeare's "A
Comedy of Errors"); Amphitryon
SENECA: Medea
THE GERMANS, AUSTRIANS, AND SWISS:
GOETHE: Faust I and II
WEDEKIND: Spring's Awakening; The Lulu Plays
STERNHEIM: The Snob
BRECHT: The Threepenny Opera; Mother Courage; Galileo; The
Caucasian Chalk Circle; The Good Person of Setzuan; Man is Man
WEISS: Marat/Sade
THE FRENCH:
MOLIERE: Tartuffe; The Miser; The School for Wives; The
Misanthrope; The Doctor in Spite of Himself
BEAUMARCHAIS: The Barber of Seville; The Marriage of Figaro
DUMAS, FILS: Camille
ZOLA: Therese Raquin
GIRADOUX: The Madwoman of Chaillot; Amphitryon 38; The
Enchanted; Tiger at the Gates; Electra
SARTRE: The Flies; No Exit (existentialism, anyone?)
IONESCO: The Bald Soprano; The Chairs; The Lesson;
Rhinoceros
GENET: The Maids; The Blacks; The Balcony
THE SPANISH:
LOPE DE VEGA: Fuente Ovejuna
CALDERON DE LA BARCA: Life is a Dream
LORCA: Yerma; Blood Wedding; The House of Bernarda Alba
TIRSO DE MOLINA: The Trickster of Seville
THE ITALIANS:
GOLDONI: The Servant of Two Masters
PIRANDELLO: Right You are If You Think So [If You Think You
Are]; Six Characters in Search of An Author; Henry IV
THE EASTERN EUROPEANS:
HAVEL: The Memorandum (Czech)
THE AFRICANS:
SOYINKA: The Death and the King's Horseman
FUGARD: Sizwe Bansi is Dead; The Island; Blood Knot; Master
Harold...and the Boys