Play It Again Sam

It’s that time again, time to dust off your book shelves for something new to read. In keeping with our previous book lists, I have three new items, but this month I thought I’d go with plays. So much great literature is written in play form, in fact some of the first literature around was a play. There are so many great plays that I had a hard time narrowing them down to three for the purposes of this blog, but I finally decided on three that had a little variety but were all very entertaining. They are Othello, Our Town, and Pygmalion.
Othello was written by William Shakespeare around 1603. I know that most everyone had to read this play in high school, but I simply could not have a section about plays for our book group and not include a play from greatest playwright in history. I decided to go with Othello because it has one my favorite villains in it, and I love a good villain. Iago is able to lie and insinuate Othello into a frenzy causing him to act rashly and lose everything that he has. And yet, though he is plotting the downfall of Othello and other characters, he is called Honest Iago throughout the play. The play itself is very interesting and well written as all Shakespeare plays are.
Pygmalion was written by George Bernard Shaw in 1913. It’s the story of man who makes a bet that he can pass a flower girl off as an aristocrat by changing the way she speaks. I know what your thinking, movie buffs, and yes, this is the original play that My Fair Lady was adapted from. There are a few differences of course, but the adaptation was well done. Of course, George Bernard Shaw got his inspiration from the Ovid story of Pygmalion, the man who disliked women until he sculpted the perfect woman and fell in love with the sculpture. He prayed to the goddess Aphrodite who turned the sculpture into a woman whom he then married.
Our Town was written by Thornton Wilder in 1937. It’s the story of life in a small town in the thirties, especially following a young couple who marry in the second act. The third act ties everything together (as usually happens in plays) as one character sums up by saying “My, wasn't life awful--and wonderful,". It’s an absolutely beautiful play that made me try to look at things a little more closely and be thankful for what I have and for every minute that I have with the people I love.