PLAYS FOR THREE - Eric Lane and Nina Shengold, editors


 Any good theatre student could tell you that three is an ideal minimum number of actors to have on stage at a time because it offers the best opportunity for stage 'pictures.' Three characters also provides more conflict possibilities between characters while keeping the number of actors (often seen in terms of cost - especially for union houses) down. This book is ideal, then, for a number of different reasons.

I enjoy reading plays simply for enjoyment (for those who haven't read many plays, it's very different experience and even those who read a lot of novels or short stories often find it difficult) but as someone who has worked in theatre for many years and who has directed at high school, college, and community theatre levels, I was often reading plays and thinking of their possibilities on a stage.

One of the aspects I really like about a collection like this is simply the access to a diverse range of plays. For those of us who do like reading scripts but don't live in an area with a really good shop that sells new releases of plays, it's really hard to find new or critical works to read.  Sure, I can go on a website and buy scripts, but a play that takes about two hours to read costs nearly as much as the latest NYT bestseller, which generally provides a week's worth of reading entertainment. A collection like this makes a lot of plays much more affordable and someone else has done the browsing already.

The down-side is that the editors may not have the same tastes that I do, which might just be the case here.  

In ths entire collection of 23 plays, I really only enjoyed two of them. The first of these is Mark Harvey Levine's Shades. I think Levine is a comic genius and the natural successor to Neil Simon. Read or see a few of his plays and you'll probably agree.

The other is Short Shorts by David Reidy which follows the Levine play in the book. It's not easy to follow Levine, but the fact that I liked this so much, speaks highly (to me, at least) of the script.

Nothing here was terrible, but at the same time none of the other scripts really grabbed me. A couple were too slow, some had characters that I didn't find very interesting, and most of them were too 'issue-oriented' to the point that I felt as though the playwright was hitting us over the head with 'this is important' dialog.  

Some of the best plays are issue-oriented, but the playwrights trust in the intelligence of the audience and let the reader/viewer put it together rather than beating it in.

I'd love to have access to more collections of plays, even though this one wasn't quite as strong as I was hoping for.

This book contains the following:

Short Plays

Rob Ackerman: DUNCAN AND TROY VISIT A PETTING ZOO
Cesi Davidson: ENTONCES VIVAMOS
Philip Dawkins: EX LIBRIS
Amlin Gray: FAKESPEARE
Kitt Lavoie: GOOD ENOUGH
Donald Margulies: KIBBUTZ
Adrienne Dawes: LA MADIA CYCLE
Stephen Webb: MOVE LIKE ANTS
Pete Barry: SEX WITH A MATHEMATICIAN
Mark Harvey Levine: SHADES
David Riedy: SHORT SHORTS
Catherine Filloux: THE BEAUTY INSIDE
Anna Moench: THE FOREST FOR THE TREES
Frank Higgins: THE QUESTIONING
Wendy Kesselman: THE SHELL COLLECTION
Cory Hinkle: THIS QUINTESSENCE OF DUST
Nina Shengold: TROIKA


Full-Length Plays

A. Rey Pamatmat: EDITH CAN SHOOT THINGS AND HIT THEM
Craig Wright: LADY
Madeleine George: PRECIOUS LITTLE
Eric Lane: RIDE
Stephen Belber: TAPE
Matthew Lopez: THE WHIPPING MAN

Looking for a good book? Plays for Three, edited by Eric Lane and Nina Shengold, pulls together 23 scripts, one acts as well as full-length, each with only three characters.  Most of the scripts were not as strong as this reader was hoping for.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.

3 stars

* * * * * *

Plays for Three: A Unique Collection of 23 Plays for Three Actors

editors: Eric Lane and Nina Shengold

publisher: Vintage

ISBN: 9781101872291

paperback, 768 pages

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