Re: RAT The Sassies!!!! The Picks

[MFarkash@aol.com]

My picks for the enduring American plays --

AMERICAN PLAY

Our Town. Ultimately, all is dust, so grab those simple pleasures while you 
can.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolfe -- ah, the twisted, bitter neuroses of family

Oh Calcutta -- nudity, nudity, nudity!!


Best American musical

Carousel -- no question.  One of the darkest American musicals. The 
despoiling of virtue (Billy Bigelow's treatment of Julie Jordan), the 
overweening optimism ("June is Bustin' Out All Over," the "clambake" song) 
covering up the corruption of Amerika -- the plot of Billy and his jailbird 
friend. 
       Both romantic male leads turn out to be horrors -- Billy's "Peter Pan" 
syndrome and, hey, take a look at Mr. Snow. Smells of fish (unrepentant 
capitalist), he forces his Republican penis upon Carrie and they produce 
enough GOP kids to fill the Assembly. Mr. Snow's industrial-revolution laugh 
is enough to make anyone shudder.  
         I could go on -- suffice to say, the show is a wonderful,  incisive 
indictment of American values.   It's also a feminist tract. Julie's cousin, 
the strongest, kindest woman, don't need no stinkin' man. Ultimately, Julie 
learns to live without the patriarchy, too.

Runner up is "Hair" -- Nudity, nudity, nudity!!!


Best American play of the '90s.

One hundred years from now, they'll still be marveling over "Meat Dreams," 
which began its run in 1990 at the Century City Playhouse and then the 
Burbage. An incredible, darkly comic look at greed, users, the propensity 
toward self-destruction and runaway human appetites.  "Brilliant stage noir," 
said one impassioned observer.