The Great Plays (Cont.)

A list of great plays:
Medea, Euripides [Six Broadway productions, 1920 – 2003]
Oedipus, Sophocles [Eight Broadway productions, 1907 – 1984]
Hamlet, Shakespeare [Sixty-seven Broadway productions, 1761 - 1995]
King Lear, [Eighteen Broadway productions, 1754 – 2004]
Tartuffe, Moliere [Five Broadway productions, 1965 – 2003; 36 productions of Moliere plays, 1879 - 2003]
Life is a Dream (La Vida es Sueno 1636), Calderon [One Broadway Production, 1953; a notable production at BAM a few years back]

What modern plays rest comfortably on the shelf beside any of these masterpieces? A Streetcar Named Desire? Death of a Salesman? Our Town?
Hamlet is funny. Marrying your mother is funny. Life is a Dream has some good stuff in it. Not straight out funny, but fun. Lear, Gloucester, Edgar, Goneril, Regan - these are funny people. Cordelia and the Fool: not funny. You know how when someone you know really well, say, your mother, gets so over the top mad you start laughing? That's Media. She's actually pretty funny. Tartuffe, being a comedy, is supposed to be funny and it is. But it is remarkable for how narrowly it avoides being tragedy.
Media, Oedipus, Hamlet, Lear, Segismundo - these are smart, strong, opinionated, grappling-with-the-Gods-type people, the kind you invite to cocktails.
Our Town aint my kinda town. I admire the craftsmanship, but it doesn't resonate with me. A Streetcar Named Desire is a masterclass in story structure, and Stella, Stanley, Blanch and the rest are expertly drawn characters, but these days, Streetcar is competing against reality TV. It's easier to stay home and watch Honey Boo Boo or the Kardashians. For most people, made up characters can't hold a candle to real characters.
Buried Child. Jesus. Imagine sharing a bottle of sour mash with Tilden.
The truly great tragedies cut it so close to comedy it isn't funny.
Visa versa for comedies.