Official Great Works Draft (11 Viewers)

[rodg12]

DC Thunder - You can pick. Bob Lee Swagger has said to autoskip him if he's not around when he's on the clock.

 

[timschochet]

Bonzai, Bobby Layne, and Rodg12 all objected to Zen being selected as non-fiction. If they want to come in and retract their objections, then I will allow it. Otherwise, I really can't, sorry.

 

[krista4]

tim, could we ask you to rethink your ruling on CIA's Zen choice? It seems at least Hummus, Postradamus, and I think it doesn't differ from other philosophical works drafted in non-fiction.

I've never read it. But under the Wiki description, it clearly says, Philosophical Novel.Now that had to be pointed out to me. Under the actual description, there is no mention that it is a novel, and in fact it sounds like it is not a novel. So my original ruling was to let it stand.

I don't care one way or the other. Obviously it's not a traditional "novel", and really belongs more under discussion in the "non-fiction" category. But so long as somebody objects, then I don't see how I can allow it. There were at least 4 objections.

OK. But if CIA wants to appeal, my vote is with him to overrule, and it is then in rodg's hands, I guess.ETA: I see now that rodg was one of the objectors, so unless he changes his mind, I guess that's that.

 

[DCThunder]

DC Thunder - You can pick. Bob Lee Swagger has said to autoskip him if he's not around when he's on the clock.

OK. Pick coming.

 

[timschochet]

Doug, I'm assuming that your choice of The Jazz Singer is the 1927 Al Jolson version, and not the Neil Diamond version, correct? I wouldn't want to have to expel you from the draft for bad taste...

 

[DCThunder]

43.17-Bolero-Maurice Ravel-Composition

Yes, it has a reputation as being kind of a cheesy piece of classical music thanks to it's use in the movie 10, but Bolero when done by a full symphony orchestra it is a stiring piece of music. At it's premier in 1928 under tha baton of Maestro Artruo Toscanini, Bolero was greeted with "shouts and cheers from the audience" according to a New York Times review[7] leading one critic to declare that "it was Toscanini who launched the career of the Boléro",[7] and another to claim that Toscanini had made Ravel into "almost an American national hero".[7]

Boléro is written for a large orchestra consisting of two flutes, piccolo, two oboes (oboe 2 doubles oboe d'amore), cor anglais, E-flat clarinet, two B-flat clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, piccolo trumpet in D, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, two saxophones (one sopranino and one tenor doubling on soprano — one of the first large ensemble pieces to employ the family), timpani, two snare drums, cymbals, tamtam, celesta, harp and strings (violins, violas, cellos and double basses).

Boléro is "Ravel's most straightforward composition in any medium".[4] The music is built over an unchanging ostinato rhythm played on one or more snare drums that continues throughout the piece:

On top of this rhythm is repeated a single theme, consisting of two eighteen-bar sections, each itself repeated twice. Tension is provided by the contrast between the steady percussive rhythm, and the "expressive vocal melody trying to break free".[11] Interest is maintained by constant reorchestration of the theme, leading to a variety of timbres, and by a steady crescendo.

The melody is passed among different instruments: flute, clarinet, bassoon, E-flat clarinet, oboe d'amore, trumpet, saxophone, horn, trombone and so on. While the melody continues to be played in C throughout, from the middle onwards other instruments double it in different keys. The first such doubling involves a horn playing the melody in C, while a celeste doubles it 2 and 3 octaves above and two piccolos play the melody in the keys of G and E, respectively. This functions as a reinforcement of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th overtones of each note of the melody. The other significant "key doubling" involves sounding the melody a 5th above or a 4th below, in G major. Other than these "key doublings", Ravel simply harmonizes the melody using diatonic chords.

The accompaniment becomes gradually thicker and louder until the whole orchestra is playing at the very end. Just before the end (rehearsal number 18 in the score), there is a sudden change of key to E major, though C major is reestablished after just eight bars. Six bars from the end, the bass drum, cymbals and tam-tam make their first entry, and the trombones play raucous glissandi while the whole orchestra beats out the rhythm that has been played on the snare drum from the very first bar. Finally, the work descends from a dissonant D-flat chord to a C major chord.[12]

On April 8, 2008, the New York Times published an article saying Ravel may have been in the early stages of frontotemporal dementia in 1928, and this might account for the repetitive nature of Boléro.[13]

[edit] Tempo and duration

The tempo indication in the score is Tempo di Bolero, moderato assai ("tempo of a bolero, very moderate"). In Ravel's own copy of the score, the printed metronome mark of 76 per quarter is crossed out and 66 is substituted.[14] Later editions of the score suggest a tempo of 72.[14] Ravel's own recording from January 1930 starts at around 66 per quarter, slightly slowing down later on to 60-63.[6] Its total duration is 15 minutes 50 seconds.[14] Coppola's first recording, at which Ravel was present, has a similar duration of 15 minutes 40 seconds.[14] Ravel said in an interview with the Daily Telegraph that the piece lasts 17 minutes[15].

An average performance will last in the area of fifteen minutes, with the slowest recordings, such as that by Ravel's associate Pedro de Freitas-Branco, extending well over 18 minutes[14] and the fastest, such as Leopold Stokowski's 1940 recording with the All American Youth Orchestra, approaching 12 minutes.[16]

At Coppola's first recording Ravel indicated strongly that he preferred a steady tempo, criticizing the conductor for getting faster at the end of the work. According to Coppola's own report:[17]

Maurice Ravel [...] did not have confidence in me for the Boléro. He was afraid that my Mediterranean temperament would overtake me, and that I would rush the tempo. I assembled the orchestra at the Salle Pleyel, and Ravel took a seat beside me. Everything went well until the final part, where, in spite of myself, I increased the tempo by a fraction. Ravel jumped up, came over and pulled at my jacket: "not so fast", he exclaimed, and we had to begin again.

Ravel's preference for a slower tempo is confirmed by his unhappiness with Toscanini's performance, as reported above. Toscanini's 1939 recording with the NBC Symphony Orchestra has a duration of 13 minutes 25 seconds.

 

[Doug B]

Write-ups:

42.16 - Show Boat, Play [5]

Show Boat is a musical in two acts with music by Jerome Kern and ... lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II ...

Show Boat is widely considered one of the most influential works of the American musical theatre. As the first true American "musical play", it marked a significant departure from operettas, light musical comedies of the 1890s and early 20th century and the "Follies"-type musical revues that had defined Broadway. According to The Complete Book of Light Opera, "Here we come to a completely new genre – the musical play as distinguished from musical comedy. Now... the play was the thing, and everything else was subservient to that play. Now... came complete integration of song, humor and production numbers into a single and inextricable artistic entity."

Show Boat is by far the most frequently revived American musical of its era, not only because of its songs, but also because its libretto, though clearly dated in comparison to those of more recent musicals, is considered to be exceptionally good for a musical of that era. The musical has won both the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical (1995) and the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Musical Revival (2008).

The plot chronicles the lives of those living and working on the Cotton Blossom, a Mississippi River show boat, from 1880 to 1927. The show's dominant themes include racial prejudice and tragic, enduring love.

Racism and Controversy

Show Boat boldly portrayed racial issues, and was the first racially integrated musical, in that both black and white performers appeared on stage together. Ziegfeld’s Follies allowed single African American performers like Bert Williams, but would never have had an African-American woman in the chorus. However, Show Boat had two choruses — a black chorus and a white chorus, and it has been perceived that "Hammerstein uses the African-American chorus as essentially a Greek chorus, providing clear commentary on the proceedings, whereas the white choruses sing of the not-quite-real."

Show Boat was also the first musical to depict an interracial marriage ... and to feature a character of mixed blood who was "passing" for white. ... Show Boat looked at the situation unflinchingly, and even had its mixed race character, Julie eventually become an alcoholic in response to her difficult life.

43.5 - The Jazz Singer (1927), Movie [4]

The Jazz Singer is a 1927 American musical film. The first feature-length motion picture with synchronized dialogue sequences, its release heralded the commercial ascendance of the "talkies" and the decline of the silent film era. Produced by Warner Bros. with its Vitaphone sound-on-disc system, the movie stars Al Jolson, who performs six songs.

The story begins with young Jakie Rabinowitz defying the traditions of his devout Jewish family by singing popular tunes in a beer hall. Punished by his father, a cantor, Jakie runs away from home. Some years later, now calling himself Jack Robin, he has become a talented jazz singer. He attempts to build a career as an entertainer, but his professional ambitions ultimately come into conflict with the demands of his home and heritage.

Commercial impact and industrial influence

The film developed into a major hit, demonstrating the profit potential of feature-length "talkies", ... The movie did well, but not astonishingly so, in the major cities where it was first released, garnering much of its impressive profits with long, steady runs in population centers large and small all around the country. As conversion of movie theaters to sound was still in its early stages, the film actually arrived at many of those secondary venues in a silent version. ... [The] film was easily the biggest earner in Warner Bros. history, and would remain so until it was surpassed a year later by (another Jolson feature). In the larger scope of Hollywood, among films originally released in 1927, available evidence suggests that The Jazz Singer was among the three biggest box office hits ...

Legacy

According to film historian Krin Gabbard, The Jazz Singer "provides the basic narrative for the lives of jazz and popular musicians in the movies. If this argument means that sometime after 1959 the narrative must belong to pop rockers, it only proves the power of the original 1927 film to determine how Hollywood tells the stories of popular musicians." More broadly, he also suggests that this "seemingly unique film" has "become a paradigm for American success stories."

 

[Doug B]

Doug, I'm assuming that your choice of The Jazz Singer is the 1927 Al Jolson version, and not the Neil Diamond version, correct? I wouldn't want to have to expel you from the draft for bad taste...

Yups -- see write-up.

 

[timschochet]

I've always loved Bolero. I've never understood the criticism. I've heard it performed by at least three Philharmonic Orchestras, and loved it every time. I like how the music rises and rises, and the melody is beautiful.

 

[Doug B]

Strangely, Zen and the Art ... is a very clear work of non-fiction disguised as a work of fiction. AFAICT, the broad events in the book actually happened (though I'm sure the dialogue is not close to verbatim). Most of the names of the "characters" are even left unchanged.

 

[Fennis]

Although I am anti-voting and judging, I would like everyone who is complaining about voting to please sign the following statement and send back to me. TIA

I solemnly, swear, attest, or affirm that the voting in the original GAD was legitimate and the best team was voted the winner.

 

[Genedoc]

I'm going to go ahead and take something Bonzai and I have been discussing for 30 rounds. You've all seen the write ups before, so I'll spare you seeing them again. Important, been read for 2500 years, still performed the world over today, still studied today, so on and so forth.

43.18 - Lysistrata by Aristophanes - Play

Wiki on Lysistrata.

With that, we've rounded out the drama component of our team to give us:

Oedipus Rex

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Medea

A Doll's House

Lysistrata

 

[rodg12]

Oh, crap. I accidentally skipped over Norwood/Anborn in telling DC to pick.

Hopefully he didn't want Bolero.

 

[DCThunder]

Zen and the Art... was one of those books that the stoners all read back when I was in college. They claimed that is was "way deep, man" and would discuss it incessantly when they were toking. It's sort of like Carlos Casteneda and his books about peyote and shamanism.

 

[Postradamus]

Zen and the Art... was one of those books that the stoners all read back when I was in college. They claimed that is was "way deep, man" and would discuss it incessantly when they were toking. It's sort of like Carlos Casteneda and his books about peyote and shamanism.

Those damn druggies!

 

[BobbyLayne]

completed writeup below:

When I saw this play three years ago at Delacorte Theater in Central Park (starring Merryl Streep and Kevin Kline), artistic director Oscar Eustis wrote in the program notes:

It has been called perhaps also the greatest anti-war play of all time

A reviewer of that production wrote:

...numerous theatrical artists and scholars share the opinion that this masterpiece is the greatest play of the twentieth century

That seems what Tennessee Williams had in mind when he said "It is the greatest drama of the 20th century"It is set in the 1600s in Europe during the Thirty Years' War - but it has gone on to reflect and respond to other wars and other atrocities, revealing powerful truths about the human condition.

42.14 (834th pick) - Mother Courage and Her Children - Play

Bertolt Brecht

ContextMother Courage is one of nine plays that Brecht wrote in an attempt to counter the rise of Fascism and Nazism. Written largely in response to the invasion of Poland (1939) by the German armies of Adolf Hitler, Brecht wrote Mother Courage in what writers call a "white heat"—in a little over a month. As leading Brecht scholars Ralph Manheim and John Willett wrote:

Mother Courage, with its theme of the devastating effects of a European war and the blindness of anyone hoping to profit by it, is said to have been written in a month, judging by the almost complete absence of drafts or any other evidence of preliminary studies it must have been an exceptionally direct piece of inspiration.

Mother Courage is, to borrow a phrase from Walter Benjamin, the play's "untragic heroine." A parasite of the war, she follows the armies of the Thirty Years War, supporting herself and her children with her canteen wagon. She remains opportunistically fixed on her survival, winning her name when hauling a cartful of bread through a city under bombardment. Courage works tirelessly, relentlessly haggling, dealing, and celebrating the war as her breadwinner in her times of prosperity. As Eilif's song suggests, she is the play's wise woman, delivering shrewd commentary on the war throughout the play. For example, the defeats for the great are often victories for the small, the celebration of the soldier's bravery indicates a faltering campaign, the leader pins his failings on his underlings, and the poor require courage. She understands that virtues in wartime become fatal to their possessors. Courage will ironically see her children's deaths from the outset, foretelling their fates in Scene One.Courage's Solomon-like wisdom does not enable her to oppose the war. The price the war will exact for Courage's livelihood is her children, each of which she will lose while doing business. Though Courage would protect them fiercely—in some sense murderously insisting that her children and her children alone come through the war.

Again, her courage is her will to survive; a will that often requires her cowardice. Unlike Kattrin, Courage will sing the song of capitulation. For example, in Scene Four, she depravedly teaches a soldier to submit to unjust authority and then bitterly learns from her song herself, withdrawing a complaint she planned to lodge herself. In the scene previous, she refuses to recognize the corpse of her executed son, consigning it to the carrion pit. Kattrin's death will not incite her to revolt. Instead, she will resume her journey with the wagon, in some sensed damned to her labor for eternity. Courage, understandably bent on her survival, does not learn, failing to understand that no sacrifice is too great to stop war.

Plot Overview

Mother Courage opens in Dalarna, spring 1624, in the midst of the Thirty Years War. A Sergeant and Recruiting Officer are seeking soldiers for the Swedish campaign in Poland. A canteen wagon appears, bearing the infamous Mother Courage, her dumb daughter, Kattrin, and her sons, Eilif and Swiss Cheese.

The Recruiting Officer attempts to seduce Eilif into the army. Courage demands that he leave her children alone. The Sergeant protests and asks why, since Courage lives off the war, it should not ask something of her in return. When Eilif admits that he would like to sign up, Courage foretells the fate of her children: Eilif will die for his bravery, Swiss Cheese for his honesty, and Kattrin for her kindness. Courage readies to leave. The Recruiting Officer presses the Sergeant to stop them. While the Sergeant feigns to buy one of Courage's belts, the Recruiting Officer takes Eilif away.

In 1626, Courage appears beside the tent of the Swedish Commander, arguing with the Cook over the sale of a capon. The Commander, a Chaplain, and Eilif enter the tent, the Commander lauding his brave soldier for raiding the local peasants. Courage remarks that trouble must be afoot. If the campaign was any good, he would not need brave soldiers. Courage reunites with her son.

Three years later, Courage and Kattrin appear folding washing on a cannon with Swiss Cheese, now a paymaster, and Yvette Pottier, the camp prostitute, look on. Yvette recounts the story of her lost beau, Peter Piper.

The Chaplain and Cook appear and they talk about politics. The Cook remarks ironically that their king is lucky to have his campaign justified by God: otherwise, he could be accused of seeking profit alone. Suddenly cannons explode; the Catholics have launched a surprise attack. The Cook departs for the Commander. Swiss arrives and hides his regiment's cash box in the wagon.

Three days later, the remaining characters sit eating anxiously. When Courage and the Chaplain go to town, Swiss departs to return the cash box unaware that an enemies are lurking about to arrest him. When Courage and the Chaplain return, two men bring in Swiss. Mother and son pretend to not know each other.

That evening, Kattrin and the Chaplain appear rinsing glasses. An excited Courage enters, declaring that they can buy Swiss' freedom. Yvette has picked up an old Colonel who will buy the canteen; Courage only plans to pawn and reclaim it after two weeks with the money from the cash box. Thanking God for corruption, Courage sends Yvette to bribe One Eye with the 200 guilders.

Yvette reports that the enemy has agreed. Swiss, however, has thrown the cash box into the river. Courage hesitates, thinking that she will not be able to reclaim the wagon. Courage proposes a new offer, 120 guilders. Yvette returns, saying that they rejected it, and Swiss' execution is imminent. Drums roll in the distance. Two men enter with a stretcher, asking Courage if she can identify Swiss Cheese's body. Courage shakes her head, consigning the body to the carrion pit.

Courage then appears outside an officer's tent, planning to file a complaint over the destruction of her merchandise. A Young Soldier enters, threatening the captain's murder. Apparently he has stolen his reward for rescuing the Colonel's horse. Courage tells him to quiet down, since his rage will not last. Defeated, the soldier leaves, and Courage follows.

Two years pass, and the wagon stands in a war-ravaged village. The Chaplain staggers in; there is another wounded family of peasants in the farmhouse. He needs linen. Courage refuses, as she will not sacrifice her officers' shirts. The Chaplain lifts her off the wagon and takes the shirts.

The canteen sits before the funeral of Commander Tilly in 1632. Mother Courage and Kattrin take inventory inside the canteen tent. Courage asks the Chaplain if the war will end—she needs to know if she should buy more supplies. The Chaplain responds that war always finds a way. Courage resolves to buy new supplies, and sends Kattrin to town. Kattrin returns with a wound across her eye and forehead, as she was attacked en route. Counting the scattered merchandise, Courage curses the war. Immediately afterward she appears at the height of prosperity, dragging her new wares along a highway. She celebrates war as her breadwinner.

A year later, voices announce that peace has been declared. Suddenly the Cook arrives, bedraggled and penniless. Courage and Cook flirt as they recount their respective ruin. The Chaplain emerges, and the men begin to argue, fighting for the feedbag. When Courage defends the Cook, the Chaplain calls her a "hyena of the battlefield." Courage suggests they part company. Suddenly an older, fatter, and heavily powdered Yvette enters. The widow of a colonel, she has come to visit Courage. When she sees the Cook, she unmasks him as the Peter Piper that ruined her years ago. Courage calms her and takes her to town.

Both men are now convinced that they are lost. Eilif then enters in fetters. He faces execution for another of his raids and has come to see his mother for the last time. The soldiers take him away and cannons thunder. Courage appears, breathless. The war resumed three days ago and they must flee with the wagon. She invites the Cook to join her, hoping that she will see Eilif soon.

It is autumn of 1634. A hard winter has come early. Courage and the Cook appear in rags before a parsonage. Abruptly the Cook tells her that he has received a letter from Utrecht saying that his mother has died and left him the family inn. He invites her to join him there. However, they must leave Kattrin behind. Kattrin overhears their conversation.

Calling to the parsonage, the Cook then sings "The Song of the Great Souls of the Earth" for food. It recounts how the great souls meet their dark fates on account of their respective virtues—wisdom, bravery, honesty, and kindness. Courage decides she cannot leave her daughter. Kattrin climbs out of the wagon, planning to flee, but Courage stops her. They depart.

It is January 1636 and the wagon stands near a farmhouse outside Halle. Kattrin is inside; her mother has gone to town to buy supplies. Out of the woods come a Catholic Lieutenant and three soldiers, seeking a guide to the town. The Catholic regiment readies for a surprise attack. Convinced there is nothing they can do, the peasants begin to pray. Quietly Kattrin climbs on the roof and begins to beat a drum. The soldiers shoot Kattrin. Her final drumbeats mingle with the thunder of a cannon. She has saved the town.

Toward morning, Courage sits by Kattrin's body in front of the wagon. Courage sings Kattrin a lullaby. The peasants bring her to her senses and offer to bury her daughter. Courage pays them and harnesses herself to the wagon. "I must get back into business" she resolves and moves after the regiment.

Themes, Motifs, and Symbols

War as Business

Brecht states the play conceives of war as a "continuation of business by other means." War is neither some supernatural force nor simply a rupture in civilization but one of civilization's preconditions and logical consequences. In this respect, there are many dialogues—the most explicit one appearing in Scene 3—that cast war as another profit venture by Europe's great leaders. Mother Courage is the play's primary small businesswoman, parasitically living off of the war with her canteen wagon. As the Model Book observes the "big profits are not made by little people." Courage's commitment to the business of war will cost her children, the war taking back for what it has provided her in flesh.

Virtue in Wartime

war "makes the human virtues fatal even to their possessors." This "lesson" appears from the outset of the play, prefiguring the fate of Mother Courage and her children. Telling each of her children's fortunes, Courage will conjure their deaths at the hand of their respective virtues: bravery, honesty, and kindness. Later, The Cook will rehearse this lesson in "The Song of the Great Souls of the Earth." As we will see, Brecht often attributes these virtues ironically. Courage, for example, is often a coward, and Eilif is more a murderer than a brave hero.

Verfremdungseffekt

The Verfremdungseffekt, alienation or "distanciation" effect, is the primary innovation of Brecht's epic theater. By alienating the spectator from the spectacle, its devices would reveal the social gestus underlying every incident on-stage and open a space for critical reflection. Often alienation also means making the workings of the spectacle possible, and decomposing the unity of the theatrical illusion. Brecht called for the spectator's alienation to oppose the mystifying tendencies of the conventional stage, tendencies that reduced its audience to passive, trance-like states. The possible techniques of alienation are endless. Slight chances in pace, alternative arrangements of the players on-stage, experiments in lighting, gesture, and tone. The success of each scene in Mother Courage hinges upon these devices. For example, Courage's "Song of the Great Capitulation," when played without alienation, risks seducing the spectator with the pleasures of surrender rather than exposing the depravity in the submission to an unjust authority.

Allegory and the Morality Play

As the name of its eponymous heroine suggests, Mother Courage poses the tradition of the morality play as its backdrop. Pedagogical in its intent, the morality play is conventionally organized around Everyman as its protagonist and various characters personifying Vices and Virtues. Action consists of their struggle, whether for the Everyman's soul or otherwise. Similarly Mother Courage offers Courage and her children as sense personifications the virtues that do them in during the war: wisdom, bravery, honesty, and kindness. Obviously, it is also profoundly pedagogical in its intentions.

Despite these similarities, it is clear that Brecht fundamentally departs from the morality play tradition as well. Certainly Courage—explicitly located in her particular socio-historical context as well as the context of the performance—is no Everyman. Moreover, the epic form militates precisely against a structure of ready identification between spectator and character that the universal Everyman clearly establishes. In the morality play, we are all "Everyman." Also, Brecht's play distorts the one-to-one correspondences (e.g. Kattrin is kindness) the morality play poses, exploiting the dissonances and arbitrary relations between the terms of its allegories. In the "Song of the Great Souls of the Earth," which awkwardly uses Socrates to figure for the simpleton Swiss Cheese, the spectator becomes conscious of the structures of figurative language that make these relations possible. By playing on the dissonances between song and action, song and character, the play would again distance the spectator from the spectacle and generate his critical reflection.

Music

At times the reader of Brecht feels trapped in a Marxist Gilbert and Sullivan musical. Rather than accompany or integrate itself into the theatrical illusion, music largely assumes an independent reality in Mother Courage, standing apart from the action. Brecht often underscored this separation by lowering a musical emblem whenever such a song would arise. Music is neither a simple accompaniment nor exclusively the expression of a character's current state, at times functioning instead in its autonomy as allegory, or as covert political commentary. Often it assumes a pedagogical function. Note, for example, how Courage teaches the soldier surrender through her song of capitulation or Yvette attempts to harden Kattrin to love through her "Fraternization Song."

war "makes the human virtues fatal even to their possessors." This "lesson" appears from the outset of the play, prefiguring the fate of Mother Courage and her children. Telling each of her children's fortunes, Courage will conjure their deaths at the hand of their respective virtues: bravery, honesty, and kindness. Later, The Cook will rehearse this lesson in "The Song of the Great Souls of the Earth." As we will see, Brecht often attributes these virtues ironically. Courage, for example, is often a coward, and Eilif is more a murderer than a brave hero.

Verfremdungseffekt

The Verfremdungseffekt, alienation or "distanciation" effect, is the primary innovation of Brecht's epic theater. By alienating the spectator from the spectacle, its devices would reveal the social gestus underlying every incident on-stage and open a space for critical reflection. Often alienation also means making the workings of the spectacle possible, and decomposing the unity of the theatrical illusion. Brecht called for the spectator's alienation to oppose the mystifying tendencies of the conventional stage, tendencies that reduced its audience to passive, trance-like states. The possible techniques of alienation are endless. Slight chances in pace, alternative arrangements of the players on-stage, experiments in lighting, gesture, and tone. The success of each scene in Mother Courage hinges upon these devices. For example, Courage's "Song of the Great Capitulation," when played without alienation, risks seducing the spectator with the pleasures of surrender rather than exposing the depravity in the submission to an unjust authority.

Allegory and the Morality Play

As the name of its eponymous heroine suggests, Mother Courage poses the tradition of the morality play as its backdrop. Pedagogical in its intent, the morality play is conventionally organized around Everyman as its protagonist and various characters personifying Vices and Virtues. Action consists of their struggle, whether for the Everyman's soul or otherwise. Similarly Mother Courage offers Courage and her children as sense personifications the virtues that do them in during the war: wisdom, bravery, honesty, and kindness. Obviously, it is also profoundly pedagogical in its intentions.

Despite these similarities, it is clear that Brecht fundamentally departs from the morality play tradition as well. Certainly Courage—explicitly located in her particular socio-historical context as well as the context of the performance—is no Everyman. Moreover, the epic form militates precisely against a structure of ready identification between spectator and character that the universal Everyman clearly establishes. In the morality play, we are all "Everyman." Also, Brecht's play distorts the one-to-one correspondences (e.g. Kattrin is kindness) the morality play poses, exploiting the dissonances and arbitrary relations between the terms of its allegories. In the "Song of the Great Souls of the Earth," which awkwardly uses Socrates to figure for the simpleton Swiss Cheese, the spectator becomes conscious of the structures of figurative language that make these relations possible. By playing on the dissonances between song and action, song and character, the play would again distance the spectator from the spectacle and generate his critical reflection.

Music

At times the reader of Brecht feels trapped in a Marxist Gilbert and Sullivan musical. Rather than accompany or integrate itself into the theatrical illusion, music largely assumes an independent reality in Mother Courage, standing apart from the action. Brecht often underscored this separation by lowering a musical emblem whenever such a song would arise. Music is neither a simple accompaniment nor exclusively the expression of a character's current state, at times functioning instead in its autonomy as allegory, or as covert political commentary. Often it assumes a pedagogical function. Note, for example, how Courage teaches the soldier surrender through her song of capitulation or Yvette attempts to harden Kattrin to love through her "Fraternization Song."

war "makes the human virtues fatal even to their possessors." This "lesson" appears from the outset of the play, prefiguring the fate of Mother Courage and her children. Telling each of her children's fortunes, Courage will conjure their deaths at the hand of their respective virtues: bravery, honesty, and kindness. Later, The Cook will rehearse this lesson in "The Song of the Great Souls of the Earth." As we will see, Brecht often attributes these virtues ironically. Courage, for example, is often a coward, and Eilif is more a murderer than a brave hero.

Verfremdungseffekt

The Verfremdungseffekt, alienation or "distanciation" effect, is the primary innovation of Brecht's epic theater. By alienating the spectator from the spectacle, its devices would reveal the social gestus underlying every incident on-stage and open a space for critical reflection. Often alienation also means making the workings of the spectacle possible, and decomposing the unity of the theatrical illusion. Brecht called for the spectator's alienation to oppose the mystifying tendencies of the conventional stage, tendencies that reduced its audience to passive, trance-like states. The possible techniques of alienation are endless. Slight chances in pace, alternative arrangements of the players on-stage, experiments in lighting, gesture, and tone. The success of each scene in Mother Courage hinges upon these devices. For example, Courage's "Song of the Great Capitulation," when played without alienation, risks seducing the spectator with the pleasures of surrender rather than exposing the depravity in the submission to an unjust authority.

Allegory and the Morality Play

As the name of its eponymous heroine suggests, Mother Courage poses the tradition of the morality play as its backdrop. Pedagogical in its intent, the morality play is conventionally organized around Everyman as its protagonist and various characters personifying Vices and Virtues. Action consists of their struggle, whether for the Everyman's soul or otherwise. Similarly Mother Courage offers Courage and her children as sense personifications the virtues that do them in during the war: wisdom, bravery, honesty, and kindness. Obviously, it is also profoundly pedagogical in its intentions.

Despite these similarities, it is clear that Brecht fundamentally departs from the morality play tradition as well. Certainly Courage—explicitly located in her particular socio-historical context as well as the context of the performance—is no Everyman. Moreover, the epic form militates precisely against a structure of ready identification between spectator and character that the universal Everyman clearly establishes. In the morality play, we are all "Everyman." Also, Brecht's play distorts the one-to-one correspondences (e.g. Kattrin is kindness) the morality play poses, exploiting the dissonances and arbitrary relations between the terms of its allegories. In the "Song of the Great Souls of the Earth," which awkwardly uses Socrates to figure for the simpleton Swiss Cheese, the spectator becomes conscious of the structures of figurative language that make these relations possible. By playing on the dissonances between song and action, song and character, the play would again distance the spectator from the spectacle and generate his critical reflection.

Music

At times the reader of Brecht feels trapped in a Marxist Gilbert and Sullivan musical. Rather than accompany or integrate itself into the theatrical illusion, music largely assumes an independent reality in Mother Courage, standing apart from the action. Brecht often underscored this separation by lowering a musical emblem whenever such a song would arise. Music is neither a simple accompaniment nor exclusively the expression of a character's current state, at times functioning instead in its autonomy as allegory, or as covert political commentary. Often it assumes a pedagogical function. Note, for example, how Courage teaches the soldier surrender through her song of capitulation or Yvette attempts to harden Kattrin to love through her "Fraternization Song."

Business practices

Deemed a "damned soul" in the Model Book, Mother Courage works tirelessly, resting only once in the course of the play. Her haggling, careful inventory, and so on frame and punctuate the action, emphasizing its underlying the social gestus. Courage always protects her interests shrewdly, inquiring into the fate of the war with only her profit in mind. Her practices emerge from the social conditions that determine the characters, committing her to the war. Ultimately she will lose each of her children as a result. Moreover, as the final scene chillingly shows, so ritualized are these practices that Courage will not learn from her losses.

Capitulation

Written in the midst of the growing Nazi terror, Mother Courage would impel its spectators to oppose war. In this respect it features a number of moments of capitulation as object lessons: most notably, the withdrawal of Courage and the Young Soldier from the captain's tent in Scene Four and the submission of the peasants in Scene 11. Mother Courage emphasizes the ritual character of capitulation. Years of war have frozen the people into fixed patterns of surrender and lamentation. Standing against these surrenders is Kattrin, disfigured and silenced by war trauma to which she continually bears witness, who risks both livelihood and life to save a town under surprise attack.

Maternity

Against Mother Courage—a mother who fails to protect her children—the play places Kattrin. Her kindness involves an impulse to mother in opposition to her mother's coldhearted business sense. As the Model Book notes, if Courage's war spoils consist of the loot she can scavenge, Kattrin's are the children she saves. Notably, her heroic intervention—one that breaks her stony silence—is the salvation of the children of Halle.

Symbols

Yvette's red boots are one of the play's most ready symbols. An archetypal fetish object, they represent femininity and feminine eroticism. Thus, it makes sense that they belong to the play's whore. Kattrin dons these boots playfully in Scene Three, imitating Yvette's walk in a private daydream. The Model Book argues that she does so because prostitution is the only way love remains available to her in wartime. In doing so, it perhaps overstates the case and, strangely enough, assumes Kattrin's total identification with her friend. Kattrin's masquerade as the whore does not necessarily mean she aims to become one.

climax · As a work of "epic theater," Mother Courage does not adhere to the Aristotelian model of plot and thus does not involve a structure of rising and falling action, climax, and catharsis. In some sense, each scene exists for itself.

falling action · Again, as a work of "epic theater," Mother Courage does not adhere to the Aristotelian model of plot.

 

[timschochet]

I'm going to go ahead and take something Bonzai and I have been discussing for 30 rounds. You've all seen the write ups before, so I'll spare you seeing them again. Important, been read for 2500 years, still performed the world over today, still studied today, so on and so forth.

43.18 - Lysistrata by Aristophanes - Play

Wiki on Lysistrata.

With that, we've rounded out the drama component of our team to give us:

Oedipus Rex

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Medea

A Doll's House

Lysistrata

It's a great list, Genedoc.

 

[rodg12]

Yankee -

Anborn will time-out in 10 minutes officially (Bob is on autoskip after 15 when OTC). To be fair, can you wait to pick until then?

I will know give myself 10 lashes for my screw-up.

 

[BobbyLayne]

I'm going to go ahead and take something Bonzai and I have been discussing for 30 rounds. You've all seen the write ups before, so I'll spare you seeing them again. Important, been read for 2500 years, still performed the world over today, still studied today, so on and so forth.

43.18 - Lysistrata by Aristophanes - Play

Wiki on Lysistrata.

With that, we've rounded out the drama component of our team to give us:

Oedipus Rex

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Medea

A Doll's House

Lysistrata

It's a great list, Genedoc.

Indeed

well done - bravo!

 

[Yankee23Fan]

Yankee -Anborn will time-out in 10 minutes officially (Bob is on autoskip after 15 when OTC). To be fair, can you wait to pick until then?I will know give myself 10 lashes for my screw-up.

Sure. Just tell me when I can pick.

 

[DCThunder]

I'm going to go ahead and take something Bonzai and I have been discussing for 30 rounds. You've all seen the write ups before, so I'll spare you seeing them again. Important, been read for 2500 years, still performed the world over today, still studied today, so on and so forth.

43.18 - Lysistrata by Aristophanes - Play

Wiki on Lysistrata.

With that, we've rounded out the drama component of our team to give us:

Oedipus Rex

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Medea

A Doll's House

Lysistrata

It's a great list, Genedoc.

Indeed

well done - bravo!

What a bunch of Debbie Downers. There's not a laugh in the bunch, except for maybe a few in Midsummers Night's Dream. Oedipus kills his father so he can bang his mother

Medea kills a bunch of men because her husband ditched her for a hotter chick

Doll's House is about a bad marriage and a psycho wife set in Norway where it's always gloomy

Lysistrata is called a comedy, but there's not a single pie in the face or fart joke in the thing. Benny Hill, it ain't!

And Midsummers Night's Dream is about fairies getting married so they can end up in bad marriages and killing their spouses.

So, yeah, this is a great list if you're having suicidal tendencies and didn't take your Prozac today.

 

[Genedoc]

I'm going to go ahead and take something Bonzai and I have been discussing for 30 rounds. You've all seen the write ups before, so I'll spare you seeing them again. Important, been read for 2500 years, still performed the world over today, still studied today, so on and so forth.

43.18 - Lysistrata by Aristophanes - Play

Wiki on Lysistrata.

With that, we've rounded out the drama component of our team to give us:

Oedipus Rex

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Medea

A Doll's House

Lysistrata

It's a great list, Genedoc.

Indeed

well done - bravo!

What a bunch of Debbie Downers. There's not a laugh in the bunch, except for maybe a few in Midsummers Night's Dream. Oedipus kills his father so he can bang his mother

Medea kills a bunch of men because her husband ditched her for a hotter chick

Doll's House is about a bad marriage and a psycho wife set in Norway where it's always gloomy

Lysistrata is called a comedy, but there's not a single pie in the face or fart joke in the thing. Benny Hill, it ain't!

And Midsummers Night's Dream is about fairies getting married so they can end up in bad marriages and killing their spouses.

So, yeah, this is a great list if you're having suicidal tendencies and didn't take your Prozac today.

If we shadows have offended think but this and all is mended

That you have but slumbered here

while these visions did appear.

 

[rodg12]

Alright, Yankee, let 'er rip.

 

[BobbyLayne]

Strangely, Zen and the Art ... is a very clear work of non-fiction disguised as a work of fiction. AFAICT, the broad events in the book actually happened (though I'm sure the dialogue is not close to verbatim). Most of the names of the "characters" are even left unchanged.

It's much like Walden, the structure is a mess, not easily categorized.FWIW we let Walden go in the non-fiction.

This is the same kind of deal IMO.

 

[Yankee23Fan]

I like musicals more then drama plays. Yes, that is sig material, but frankly, when it comes to drama, I prefer the novel or the movie, so pretty much all my plays will be musicals. I'm going to grab one of the best of Americana at this point.

I select, Oklahoma!

Oklahoma! is the first musical written by composer Richard Rodgers and librettist Oscar Hammerstein II. The musical is based on Lynn Riggs' 1931 play, Green Grow the Lilacs. Set in Oklahoma Territory outside the town of Claremore in 1906, it tells the story of cowboy Curly McLain and his romance with farm girl Laurey Williams. A secondary romance concerns flirtatious Ado Annie and her long-suffering fiancé Will Parker.

The original Broadway production opened on March 31, 1943. It was a box-office smash and ran for an unprecedented 2,212 performances, later enjoying award-winning revivals, national tours, foreign productions and an Academy Award-winning 1955 film adaptation. It has long been a popular choice for school and community productions.

This musical, building on the innovations of the earlier Show Boat, epitomized the development of the "book musical", a musical play where the songs and dances are fully integrated into a well-made story, with serious dramatic goals, that is able to evoke genuine emotions other than laughter. In addition, Oklahoma! features musical themes, or motifs, that recur throughout the work to connect the music and story more closely than any musical ever had before. A special Pulitzer Prize was awarded to Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II for Oklahoma! in the category of "Special Awards And Citations - Letters" in 1944.

 

[timschochet]

Strangely, Zen and the Art ... is a very clear work of non-fiction disguised as a work of fiction. AFAICT, the broad events in the book actually happened (though I'm sure the dialogue is not close to verbatim). Most of the names of the "characters" are even left unchanged.

It's much like Walden, the structure is a mess, not easily categorized.FWIW we let Walden go in the non-fiction.

This is the same kind of deal IMO.

The Wiki page under "Walden" lists it as "autobiography". Zen is listed as "Philosophical novel."

 

[rodg12]

Strangely, Zen and the Art ... is a very clear work of non-fiction disguised as a work of fiction. AFAICT, the broad events in the book actually happened (though I'm sure the dialogue is not close to verbatim). Most of the names of the "characters" are even left unchanged.

It's much like Walden, the structure is a mess, not easily categorized.FWIW we let Walden go in the non-fiction.

This is the same kind of deal IMO.

Since there is a precedent with Walden it seems, I'd be willing to allow Zen and the Art as non-fiction. I checked at Amazon, and it's filed under these categories:* Biographies & Memoirs > General

* Biographies & Memoirs > Memoirs

* Health, Mind & Body > Mental Health > Emotions

* Health, Mind & Body > Self-Help > Self-Esteem

* Nonfiction > Philosophy > General

* Religion & Spirituality > Authors, A-Z > ( P ) > Pirsig, Robert

* Religion & Spirituality > Buddhism > Zen Philosophy

All of those would support it as being Non-fiction I think.

ETA: It's also filed as Adult Non-fiction at my local library FWIW.

 

[Yankee23Fan]

I'll grab another iconic American musical here as well. It is a musical about seventeen Broadway dancers auditioning for spots on a chorus line. The book was authored by James Kirkwood, Jr. and Nicholas Dante, lyrics were written by Edward Kleban, and music was composed by Marvin Hamlisch.

With nineteen main characters, it is set on the bare stage of a Broadway theatre during an audition for a musical. The show provides a glimpse into the personalities of the performers and the choreographer as they describe the events that have shaped their lives and their decisions to become dancers.

The original Broadway production, directed and choreographed by Buffalo, N.Y. native Michael Bennett, was an unprecedented box office and critical hit, receiving 12 Tony Award nominations and winning nine of them, in addition to the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It ran for 6,137 performances, becoming the longest-running production in Broadway history up to that time. It remains the longest running Broadway musical originally produced in the United States, and the fourth longest-running Broadway show ever. The show has enjoyed many successful productions worldwide and was revived on Broadway in 2006.

I select, A Chorus Line

 

[krista4]

Strangely, Zen and the Art ... is a very clear work of non-fiction disguised as a work of fiction. AFAICT, the broad events in the book actually happened (though I'm sure the dialogue is not close to verbatim). Most of the names of the "characters" are even left unchanged.

It's much like Walden, the structure is a mess, not easily categorized.FWIW we let Walden go in the non-fiction.

This is the same kind of deal IMO.

The Wiki page under "Walden" lists it as "autobiography". Zen is listed as "Philosophical novel."

You're depending too much on Wiki here.ETA: I see both BL and rodg have been convinced. Are we settled then?

 

[DCThunder]

I'll grab another iconic American musical here as well. It is a musical about seventeen Broadway dancers auditioning for spots on a chorus line. The book was authored by James Kirkwood, Jr. and Nicholas Dante, lyrics were written by Edward Kleban, and music was composed by Marvin Hamlisch.

With nineteen main characters, it is set on the bare stage of a Broadway theatre during an audition for a musical. The show provides a glimpse into the personalities of the performers and the choreographer as they describe the events that have shaped their lives and their decisions to become dancers.

The original Broadway production, directed and choreographed by Buffalo, N.Y. native Michael Bennett, was an unprecedented box office and critical hit, receiving 12 Tony Award nominations and winning nine of them, in addition to the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It ran for 6,137 performances, becoming the longest-running production in Broadway history up to that time. It remains the longest running Broadway musical originally produced in the United States, and the fourth longest-running Broadway show ever. The show has enjoyed many successful productions worldwide and was revived on Broadway in 2006.

I select, A Chorus Line

Phewwwwwww. I thought you were going to snipe my next pick there for a minute.

 

[rodg12]

Strangely, Zen and the Art ... is a very clear work of non-fiction disguised as a work of fiction. AFAICT, the broad events in the book actually happened (though I'm sure the dialogue is not close to verbatim). Most of the names of the "characters" are even left unchanged.

It's much like Walden, the structure is a mess, not easily categorized.FWIW we let Walden go in the non-fiction.

This is the same kind of deal IMO.

The Wiki page under "Walden" lists it as "autobiography". Zen is listed as "Philosophical novel."

You're depending too much on Wiki here.ETA: I see both BL and rodg have been convinced. Are we settled then?

I believe so. Both you and I have ruled it as allowable as Non-fiction.

 

[Yankee23Fan]

I'll grab another iconic American musical here as well. It is a musical about seventeen Broadway dancers auditioning for spots on a chorus line. The book was authored by James Kirkwood, Jr. and Nicholas Dante, lyrics were written by Edward Kleban, and music was composed by Marvin Hamlisch.

With nineteen main characters, it is set on the bare stage of a Broadway theatre during an audition for a musical. The show provides a glimpse into the personalities of the performers and the choreographer as they describe the events that have shaped their lives and their decisions to become dancers.

The original Broadway production, directed and choreographed by Buffalo, N.Y. native Michael Bennett, was an unprecedented box office and critical hit, receiving 12 Tony Award nominations and winning nine of them, in addition to the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It ran for 6,137 performances, becoming the longest-running production in Broadway history up to that time. It remains the longest running Broadway musical originally produced in the United States, and the fourth longest-running Broadway show ever. The show has enjoyed many successful productions worldwide and was revived on Broadway in 2006.

I select, A Chorus Line

Phewwwwwww. I thought you were going to snipe my next pick there for a minute.

I have two more musicals that I am going to grab when it comes back to me, so don't take them either.

 

[timschochet]

Oklahoma! is my #2 musical of all time.

It is the most influential musical ever written.

It continues the evolution of Showboat, but with better script, MUCH better songs (simply because Richard Rodgers was a better composer, IMO, than Jerome Kern) and overall a finer theatrical compositon.

This musical is so original and fantastic in so many ways I can't describe them all here. But let me say that I knew a professor in theatre back in college who wrote an essay demonstrating that whatever wonders were enjoyed on the musical stage you could find it in Oklahoma! first.

So why then, don't I rank it the #1 musical of all time rather than #2? I can't really answer without spotlighting, except to say that my #1 choice is musical theatre absolutely perfected, without flaws, cannot be improved upon. We'll see if anyone selects it.

 

[BobbyLayne]

Bonzai, Bobby Layne, and Rodg12 all objected to Zen being selected as non-fiction. If they want to come in and retract their objections, then I will allow it. Otherwise, I really can't, sorry.

I withdraw, based on the earlier Walden ruling.This is interesting (and proves my point of how hard it is to classify); first line of the wiki entry says:

Walden (first published as Walden; or, Life in the Woods) by Henry David Thoreau is an American novel.

But in the right hand box it calls it an autobiography.

 

[krista4]

I'll grab another iconic American musical here as well. It is a musical about seventeen Broadway dancers auditioning for spots on a chorus line. The book was authored by James Kirkwood, Jr. and Nicholas Dante, lyrics were written by Edward Kleban, and music was composed by Marvin Hamlisch.

With nineteen main characters, it is set on the bare stage of a Broadway theatre during an audition for a musical. The show provides a glimpse into the personalities of the performers and the choreographer as they describe the events that have shaped their lives and their decisions to become dancers.

The original Broadway production, directed and choreographed by Buffalo, N.Y. native Michael Bennett, was an unprecedented box office and critical hit, receiving 12 Tony Award nominations and winning nine of them, in addition to the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It ran for 6,137 performances, becoming the longest-running production in Broadway history up to that time. It remains the longest running Broadway musical originally produced in the United States, and the fourth longest-running Broadway show ever. The show has enjoyed many successful productions worldwide and was revived on Broadway in 2006.

I select, A Chorus Line

Phewwwwwww. I thought you were going to snipe my next pick there for a minute.

I have two more musicals that I am going to grab when it comes back to me, so don't take them either.

Two great picks there.

 

[timschochet]

I see everyone's OK with Zen as non fiction, so we'll allow it.

 

[Doug B]

Strangely, Zen and the Art ... is a very clear work of non-fiction disguised as a work of fiction. AFAICT, the broad events in the book actually happened (though I'm sure the dialogue is not close to verbatim). Most of the names of the "characters" are even left unchanged.

It's much like Walden, the structure is a mess, not easily categorized.FWIW we let Walden go in the non-fiction.

This is the same kind of deal IMO.

The Wiki page under "Walden" lists it as "autobiography". Zen is listed as "Philosophical novel."

Frankly ... Wiki whiffs on that one. Maybe if the identities of the "characters" in the book weren't so explicitly revealed, it would be different. If Robert Pirsig didn't so interviews talking about things he did IRL that were in the book, it would be different.Click on where it says "Philosophical Novel" -- the works mentioned as archetypes of the genre have little in common with Zen and the Art ...

 

[BobbyLayne]

Typing too slow today

I don't care one way or the other, but having read both multiple times, the call should be the same for both

 

[timschochet]

A Chorus Line- simply a brilliant musical, and #7 on my all time list.

1.

2. Oklahoma!

3. South Pacific

4.

5.

6.

7. A Chorus Line

8. Fiddler On The Roof

9. West Side Story

10. Les Miserables

Please keep in mind that at the moment I have no idea how any of these will rank in the overall play rankings. Comparing them to the great dramas, comedies and tragedies will be difficult, and I'm afraid all but the very best musicals may suffer in the overall comparison; that remains to be seen. Right now I'm just comparing them to each other.

 

[BobbyLayne]

Yankee23Fan sure is gaying up the draft this morning.



NTTAWWT

 

[Yankee23Fan]

A Chorus Line- simply a brilliant musical, and #7 on my all time list.

1.

2. Oklahoma!

3. South Pacific

4.

5.

6.

7. A Chorus Line

8. Fiddler On The Roof

9. West Side Story

10. Les Miserables

Please keep in mind that at the moment I have no idea how any of these will rank in the overall play rankings. Comparing them to the great dramas, comedies and tragedies will be difficult, and I'm afraid all but the very best musicals may suffer in the overall comparison; that remains to be seen. Right now I'm just comparing them to each other.

I hope this doesn't come off as rude, but any top 10 that doesn't have The Phantom of the Opera on it is questionable at best.

 

[rodg12]

42.09 - Team CIA (repick needed)

43.14 - Misfit Blondes (repick needed)

Skipped

39.19 - Tirnan (autoskip if not around)

40.02 - Tirnan (autoskip if not around)

40.11 - Thatguy (autoskip)

41.06 - Abrantes (autoskip)

41.10 - thatguy (autoskip)

41.19 - Tirnan (autoskip if not around - Get Better GB)

42.02 - Tirnan (autoskip)

42.11 - Thatguy (autoskip)

42.15 - Abrantes (autoskip)

42.16 - Doug B (autoskip)

43.05 - Doug B (autoskip)

43.06 - Abrantes (autoskip)

43.10 - thatguy (autoskip after time out)

43.11 - El Floppo (autoskip after 15 min.)

43.12 - Mister CIA (autoskip)

43.15 - Bob Lee Swagger (autoskip after 15)

43.16 - Scott Norwood/Anborn (timed out)

43.19 - Tirnan (autoskip)

44.02 - Tirnan (autoskip)

44.03 - Genedoc - OTC until :30

44.04 - DC Thunder - On Deck

44.05 - Scott Norwood/Anborn (autoskip after time out)

44.06 - Bob Lee Swagger (autoskip)

44.07 - MisfitBlondes - In The Hole

44.08 - Uncle Humuna

44.09 - Team CIA (autoskip)

44.10 - El Floppo (autoskip if not here)

44.11 - Thatguy (autoskip)

44.12 - Big Rocks

44.13 - Tides of War (autoskip)

44.14 - BobbyLayne

44.15 - Abrantes (autoskip)

44.16 - Doug B (autoskip)

44.17 - Timschochet

44.18 - Postradamus

44.19 - Rodg

44.20 - Krista

 

[Yankee23Fan]

Yankee23Fan sure is gaying up the draft this morning. NTTAWWT

Only now? Not when I drafted the bisexual bank robber who wanted to pay for his gay lovers sex change? That didn't do it? Only when musical theatre got going did the rainbow ribbons come out?

 

[Genedoc]

44.03 - Middlemarch by George Elliot - Novel

Wiki - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middlemarch

Another one we've been discussing for 30 rounds. 125 of the world's leading authors were asked to make their personal top 10 of all time. Then, all of the lists were combined and the top 10 books mentioned on the most lists were published. This one (along with it's teammate Huck Finn) were both in the final top ten along with such luminaries as Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, War and Peace, Lolita, Hamlet, The Great Gatsby, and In Search of Lost Time. Pretty sure we're the only team with two of those, though I haven't checked. Like plays, our line up is exceptionally strong:

Don Quixote

Huck Finn

Pride/Prejudice

The Stranger

Middlemarch

Our strategy was to dominate the bigger categories, and with our Non-fiction, plays, and novels all in the running for #1 overall, I think we've accomplished that. Cheers, Bonzai!

 

[BobbyLayne]

A Chorus Line- simply a brilliant musical, and #7 on my all time list.

1.

2. Oklahoma!

3. South Pacific

4.

5.

6.

7. A Chorus Line

8. Fiddler On The Roof

9. West Side Story

10. Les Miserables

Please keep in mind that at the moment I have no idea how any of these will rank in the overall play rankings. Comparing them to the great dramas, comedies and tragedies will be difficult, and I'm afraid all but the very best musicals may suffer in the overall comparison; that remains to be seen. Right now I'm just comparing them to each other.

Thanks for the update, Thorn.I think I figured out your #1 some time back; if I am correct, there is NFW I would ever draft it. But the guys who wrote the score and choreography loom pretty large, so I understand why you put it there. Before I took mine, I surmised what #2 and #3 were, and I just wanted to draft something I liked. Sounds like Yankee got the one he wanted as well, so its all good.

 

[Genedoc]

A Chorus Line- simply a brilliant musical, and #7 on my all time list.

1.

2. Oklahoma!

3. South Pacific

4.

5.

6.

7. A Chorus Line

8. Fiddler On The Roof

9. West Side Story

10. Les Miserables

Please keep in mind that at the moment I have no idea how any of these will rank in the overall play rankings. Comparing them to the great dramas, comedies and tragedies will be difficult, and I'm afraid all but the very best musicals may suffer in the overall comparison; that remains to be seen. Right now I'm just comparing them to each other.

I hope this doesn't come off as rude, but any top 10 that doesn't have The Phantom of the Opera on it is questionable at best.

I beg to differ. I think a very good case can be made for at least 10 musicals better than Phantom. My problem with the list above is that Les Mis is too low. It's a top 3, top 5 at worst. I prefer it to all of those named above.

 

[Yankee23Fan]

A Chorus Line- simply a brilliant musical, and #7 on my all time list.

1.

2. Oklahoma!

3. South Pacific

4.

5.

6.

7. A Chorus Line

8. Fiddler On The Roof

9. West Side Story

10. Les Miserables

Please keep in mind that at the moment I have no idea how any of these will rank in the overall play rankings. Comparing them to the great dramas, comedies and tragedies will be difficult, and I'm afraid all but the very best musicals may suffer in the overall comparison; that remains to be seen. Right now I'm just comparing them to each other.

I hope this doesn't come off as rude, but any top 10 that doesn't have The Phantom of the Opera on it is questionable at best.

I beg to differ. I think a very good case can be made for at least 10 musicals better than Phantom. My problem with the list above is that Les Mis is too low. It's a top 3, top 5 at worst. I prefer it to all of those named above.

I wasn't even going to get his Les Mis position. To me, there is no question that Les Mis is #1. Of all the shows I have seen on broadway and off, and I've seen a ton of them including every one in his list, Les Mis is the only one that just blew me away every time, no matter how many times I saw it and the same thing with the music as well.As for Phantom, if I had to rank all time shows it would be in the top 5, so I have a hard time coming close to 10th let alone out of 10th. No, that show had way way too much power and perfection to not be in a top 10.

 

[Fennis]

A Chorus Line- simply a brilliant musical, and #7 on my all time list.

1.

2. Oklahoma!

3. South Pacific

4.

5.

6.

7. A Chorus Line

8. Fiddler On The Roof

9. West Side Story

10. Les Miserables

Please keep in mind that at the moment I have no idea how any of these will rank in the overall play rankings. Comparing them to the great dramas, comedies and tragedies will be difficult, and I'm afraid all but the very best musicals may suffer in the overall comparison; that remains to be seen. Right now I'm just comparing them to each other.

I hope this doesn't come off as rude, but any top 10 that doesn't have The Phantom of the Opera on it is questionable at best.

Tim the biggest flaw on this list is we aren’t drafting musicals, we are drafting plays. R&H and the hack Andrew Lloyd Weber may deserve 10 of 10 top musicals, but no way they deserve to be on any list for top plays.

 

[Bonzai]

Bonzai, Bobby Layne, and Rodg12 all objected to Zen being selected as non-fiction. If they want to come in and retract their objections, then I will allow it. Otherwise, I really can't, sorry.

I'm fine with it.

 

[El Floppo]

44.03 - Middlemarch by George Elliot - Novel

Wiki - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middlemarch

Another one we've been discussing for 30 rounds. 125 of the world's leading authors were asked to make their personal top 10 of all time. Then, all of the lists were combined and the top 10 books mentioned on the most lists were published. This one (along with it's teammate Huck Finn) were both in the final top ten along with such luminaries as Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, War and Peace, Lolita, Hamlet, The Great Gatsby, and In Search of Lost Time. Pretty sure we're the only team with two of those, though I haven't checked. Like plays, our line up is exceptionally strong:

Don Quixote

Huck Finn

Pride/Prejudice

The Stranger

Middlemarch

Our strategy was to dominate the bigger categories, and with our Non-fiction, plays, and novels all in the running for #1 overall, I think we've accomplished that. Cheers, Bonzai!

Saw this one pop up a lot on lists... I've never read it, so had no interest in drafting it.I have read the rest of your picks- ... and I mean that in a good way.