Four Kinds of Plays

I had a thought (not exactly a revelation, but close) over the weekend when I went to see Sarah Ruhl's "Dead Man's Cell Phone". I think that there are four different kinds of plays. There are the plays that are full of very profound one-liners, strong messages and intellectualism but no overall story, guts or tangibility. Then there are those that have the exact opposite. Lots of humanity, back and forth simple banter, strong story but no strong message or focus. That's not to say there is a lack of theme, because there's a theme to everything unless your staring at a cardboard box. And even then...a warehouse comes to mind, and labor, and work. I'm on a tangent. Anyway, then, of course, there are those that have the worst of both worlds and the best.

I'm not saying one way or another about Ms. Ruhl's play; since I'm a playwright and not a reviewer, I'm going to restrain from critiquing it. I thought she had some very cool things to say, however, and this made me consider the idea of four different kinds of plays. Her play is very ethereal, like her characters and I'm sure that was partly the point of it. I'm not going to say too much about the show for those who haven't read or seen it, but I think it can be classified into these categories, as anything else.

This is a bit of an ethereal blog post, now that I think about it. The point is, you can either have All Ideas, No Guts or All Guts, No Ideas. Either way, this is bad. I think in a good play, there must be a marriage between Ideas and Guts. Without these things, you're either better off watching a wrestling match or hearing a debate at a local college. Both possibly good events, (though I've never gone to a wrestling match) neither can be classified as plays. But what a show that would be! A college debate/wrestling match. Now I would pay to see that.