For those who might not explicitly know, one of my other passions is theatre. I go see it when I can afford to, and I work in various aspects of production (design, tech, organization, etc.).
Since I graduated college, I haven’t really read anything new that wasn’t for a specific show, I haven’t written any papers that make me actually think about characters and time period and the over-all scope and context of a playwright, and I’ve hardly discussed a play with anyone (I have talked/argued about specific productions, but that’s hardly the same thing). And, since I’ve been having trouble finding scripts that inspire me just by reading it (that is, before a production has all it’s bells and whistles and exciting things to look forward to), I’ve decided to start reading and compiling a dossier so to speak of one-page briefs on plays, playwrights, theatre movements, and local companies. As a beginning benchmark, I’ll do one to two plays a month (depending on my work load), and, hopefully, at some point, I’ll work my way up to one a week.
The first play I picked up was The History Boys by Alan Bennett, a British playwright who’s been writing since the 60′s. It premiered in 2004 at the National Theatre in London (where it won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play), and, in 2006, enjoyed both a stay on Broadway (where it won 6 Tony Awards) as well as a film that used the director and all the original cast from the first production.
All in all (without ruining the later plot points), it’s about the British educational system, specifically in reference to the social separation between Oxbridge graduates (and therefore the pressure put on what Americans would call seniors in high school to get in to one of those ‘elite’ schools) and everyone else. More specifically, it’s about how we teach and record History (three different approaches are presented by the three teachers), though whether any of those methods is truly appropriate or completely accurate is another matter entirely. It doesn’t appear within the play that Bennett takes any one side over the others, perhaps because, while Irwin’s approach may work, it may not be entirely appropriate to the true understanding of History (an expansion of this point can be found in the introduction and Bennett’s discussion of his own career at Oxford in History and contrarian TV Historians).
It really is a witty and enjoyable play (though be prepared for a few pages in French), but I’m not sure it would be producible in Portland, partly because of the French (a funny scene that does certainly add to the character relationships, though it may be able to be cut, but I’m not entirely sure), but also because, while college acceptance is important in America, it does not seem to have the same level of social implications as it does in Britain, and I’m really not sure how that would translate in a non-Broadway production. The movie was really just as enjoyable (it happened to be on TV last night when I was compiling my notes, lucky me!) and cleared up a few murky bits that didn’t hit me right away when reading (which may have something to do with British idioms). I do admire Bennett’s thoughts on education (from the play as well as his very well written and interesting introduction) as well as the wit in his writing, so I’m hoping to find another of his plays to read at some point.
). I’m not sure how much will be complete when she finally gets here, as she could technically arrive any time between now and December 10th (not to mention I’ve been suddenly and extremely exhausted), but we’ll see!
