Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Strindberg mansplains it all

Miss Julie by August Strindberg

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In the last season of the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, the popular lowbrow comedienne Sophie Lennon, played by Jane Lynch, wants to prove her acting chops by starring in a theatre play of Miss Julie.  Despite rehearsal performances that are nuanced, in the actual performance Lennon plays Miss Julie as a variation on her lowbrow alter ego, to crushing reviews.  It turns out that this highbrow/lowbrow collision is one of the main themes of Miss Julie, so Lennon’s portrayal might actually have been a novel approach. […]

Reading the rainbow for CBR Bingo

Butterflies are Free by Leonard Gershe

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Written by Leonard Gershe, who also wrote the script for the Audrey Hepburn film Funny Face, Butterflies are Free is a play that premiered in 1969 with Blythe Danner (Gwyneth’s ma) in one of the starring roles. It was adapted into a 1972 film starring Goldie Hawn and Eileen Heckart, the latter of whom won an Oscar for best supporting actress.  Who knew?!  My background prior to the google search that provided that info was that my parents went to college for performing arts in […]

Regular school is out but Hogwarts is in

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by Jack Thorne

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Who knew that in times of darkness all I needed was a little Harry Potter?  I sat down on Easter Sunday and burned my way through this in the space of a few hours, feeling happier on the other side. It’s a quick but compelling read, true enough to the Harry Potter format to scratch that nostalgic itch. Firstly, it should be noted that this is a play script, not a novel, and it wasn’t written by J.K. Rowling although it did involve her (it […]

Reading Plays Just Isn’t For Me

Crimes of the Heart by Beth Henley

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I hate reading plays. I HATE IT. We don’t expect people to have great literary experiences reading movie scripts, but we do with plays. I do reading challenges every year (this one is for Reading Women) for the express purpose of making my reading more diverse, so I’m not going to let plays defeat me if poetry hasn’t in years past. But I did not enjoy a single minute of it. I’m still rating this three stars because it isn’t the play’s fault I’m not […]

Yup, still hate Beckett

Waiting for Godot: A Tragicomedy in Two Acts by Samuel Beckett

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CBR11bingo: Back to School One day a few years ago, my husband came home and suggested we see Waiting for Godot, which was being performed by a local theater company. I said, “I have a better idea, let’s schedule a couple’s colonoscopy instead, because that would be equally as fun.” Needless to say, he hasn’t broached the subject of Samuel Beckett since. But as I pondered the CBR Back to School bingo square, I wondered whether I may have been unfair. I hadn’t read any […]

Bingo is really making me branch out!

Agatha Christie: the Lost Plays by Agatha Christie

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cbr11bingo – Classics Hope this counts! I have a hard time keeping my attention on most of the classics, so I looked for a full-cast audio of something fairly light, and this one was quickly available on Overdrive. In 2015, the BBC rereleased these three plays of Christie’s that were thought to be lost. The audio also includes an interview with the author, the cast of the Mouse Trap, and with the lone radio actor who was still alive when the collection was published. The […]



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