RAT RE: Sassies

[Chris Jeffries <cjeffries@seanet.com>]

My pick for the millennium is A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.  An astonishing 
act of alchemy, at least as profound as the everyone-dies plays -- "it 
hath no bottom."  The only play I get nervous about putting MIDSUMMER in 
front of is KING LEAR, but MIDSUMMER is the one I constantly reread, 
steal from, and marvel at.  To touch it every day would probably bring 
good luck.

Picking one for the century feels much harder.  The one I'd travel back 
in time to see first is the 1961 U.S. premiere of Genet's THE BLACKS: A 
CLOWN SHOW at St. Mark's Playhouse, NYC, with a cast including James Earl 
Jones, Maya Angelou, Louis Gossett, and Cicely Tyson.  (Andre Gregory was 
one of the producers.)  Close behind are the musicals of Duke Ellington 
and George Gershwin.  That said, I return most often to Jeffrey Jones' 
SEVENTY SCENES OF HALLOWEEN.  Meanwhile, some demonic imp is whispering 
to me to mention Noel Coward's HANDS ACROSS THE SEA, so I do, perversely.

The decade?  Tilt.  Strictly as a placeholder, I'll offer Charles Mee's 
ORESTES.