Pulling Apart Pulitzer Prize-Winning Dramas

Description John Patrick Shanley makes a wise decision to describe this play as a "parable." The incredibly short play, lasting at most 90-minutes, weighs heavily on the audience's conscience. Shanley includes a preface in the print which serves as a forewarning: the play unsettles its audience. His story spotlights the role of doubt in life. Complacent beliefs have no merit to Shanley, as he grapples with certainty. The play requires only four actors for the nine short scenes. Set in 1964, Sister Aloysius is the principal at St. Nicholas catholic church and school in the Bronx. Her personality is best described as unwavering. She assumes the image of strict, no-nonsense nun. Sister Aloysius mentors, or chastises (depends on how you look at it), the young Sister James. Sister Aloysius challenges Sister James' pedagogical philosophy, urging Sister James to be more "cold." In the midst of their conversations, Sister James reveals that the only young Africa...

Description A Streetcar Named Desire  helped skyrocket Marlon Brando into fame. Although you might not be familiar with the play, you might have an innate recognition of the line: "STELLA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" You can thank Tennessee Williams for that. Williams' ethos as an important American playwright was absolutely solidified in this piece, as many critics herald the play as his finest and uphold it is one of America's most influential pieces of drama. Is it bad that it is my least favorite out of The Glass Menagerie and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof ? Maybe I just committed a terrible offence in saying that . . . Please forgive me . . . Playbill.com describes the play: " Fragile Southern belle Blanche DuBois moves to New Orleans to live with her sister, Stella, and her brutish brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski, in a dingy apartment. Temperaments clash, fireworks fly and secrets are revealed in Tennessee Williams' Pulitzer Prize-winning drama."  Stanley Kowa...

Description Eugene O'Neill's third Pulitzer Prize-winning play is broken into 9 acts which are split into two parts. It would easily take over four hours to perform the work (and it took me forever to read it). The number of soliloquies and ellipses in the play would be astronomical to chart (if anyone wants to do a Ctrl+F count of ellipses in the play in digital form and get back to me, that'd be incredible). O'Neill relies upon revealing the characters' thoughts through dialogue throughout every scene. The only comparison I could think of while reading was "Malcolm in the Middle," except in this play the asides and revelations are hardly comical and are often given the stage direction of "torturedly." And did I mention that the play is LONG? Here is Playbill.com's summary of the play: " A professor's daughter, haunted by the loss of her fiancé in World War I, embarks on a series of affairs and a placid marriage, becoming a moth...

Description Tennessee Williams' name always finds itself on lists regarding the most important/influential American playwrights. The Glass Menagerie , of course, is one of his most well-known works; however, The Glass Menagerie did not receive the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. A Streetcar Named Desire is his other Pulitzer Prize-winning play. He finds himself on the short list of playwrights to receive the award more than once, but he is lucky for this honor: the jury was heavily persuaded to name it the winner by a certain Joseph Pulitzer Jr. . . . The play is described by Playbill.com by the following: " In Tennessee Williams' Pulitzer Prize winner, a wealthy Southern patriarch faces impending death and manipulates his family, as his children squabble and mislead in desperate attempts to secure the family inheritance." The summary does not do the subplots justice.  WARNING: Spoilers abound here.  NOTE: I technically read the 1974 version, not the 1955 version--s...