THE 101 GREATEST PLAYS by Michael Billington. (Guardian and Faber & Faber £18.99).
Michael Billington says “eyebrows will doubtless be raised about my final selection, the omissions even more than the inclusions. Shakespearians will be outraged, Beckettians will be astonished.”
Billington, doyen of theatre critics, has been the Guardian’s theatre critic since 1971 and he has seen over 9,000 plays. He brings a formidable knowledge and love of theatre to his choice. His final choice is highly personal. How could it be anything else?
A great play is both an expression of its time and open to multiple interpretations. On the whole he has allowed himself only one play for each playwright from antiquity to the present day. Inevitably, a lot of great plays are left out.
Is Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex a greater play than Antigone? Is Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lostgreater than Othello? Is Noel Coward’s Design for Living greater than Private Lives? Is Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing greater than Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead? Is Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen greater than Noises Off?
Many readers, like me, will instantly start making their own list; but in a way that’s the whole point of the book. His list, however, is an excellent one.
I suspect many of our foremost directors will be studying his book to find which great plays have been much neglected and really ought to be revived more often. For my own part, there are six plays, which I have not even had an opportunity to see.
Billington naturally writes about plays on stage as well as on the page and there are many useful references to many past productions. The essays are always extremely readable. It’s a great book for theatre lovers and an indispensable book for theatre practitioners and students. I cannot recommend it too strongly.
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