Ah, yes, I remember them well.

I have seen hundreds of plays and musicals; both amateur and professional; on Broadway, in regional theaters and high school auditoriums. I have seen such greats as Mary Martin, Bert Lahr, Eli Wallach, Maggie Smith, and—at Boston's Symphony Hall—Charles Laughton giving thundering readings from the Bible and later Bette Davis and Gary Merrill in their two-person show The World of Carl Sandburg. What was the most exciting play I ever saw? Easy. Eileen Heckart in The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds. The play by Paul Zindel was so powerful, so riveting, so disturbing, and Ms. Heckart's performance so intensely perfect, that at intermission nobody applauded and, for a few moments, nobody moved. The entire production was perfection and I'll never forget it. Thinking about it today made me realize and oddity of the American Theater. When I was younger, many plays came to Boston and other American cities that were "must sees." Everybody went. And, often these shows were so popular they returned again and again. Among them were Moonchildren, The World of Suzie Wong, No Time for Sergeants, Equus, and The Boys in the Band. All wildly popular in their time. Yet oddly enough none of them is especially significant today. Most were made into forgettable movies, the saddest being The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds because director Paul Newman and his star Joanne Woodward failed to capture any of the play's magic. Others are rarely seen on TV. And another seems to have completely disappeared: Moonchildren by Michael Weller, which had critics raving at the time. So what's the point of this post? I guess just to reflect on how the fate of stage plays can be so different from movies. And to wonder if the same situation occurs today. Are there any contemporary dramas that go from "You've got to see this play" to "Yeah, I kind of remember that." I would say yes, and my candidates would be Wit, Proof, Sideman and possibly a play I saw in New York two years ago and, for the first time paid $125.00 for a ticket" August, Osage County.