15 of Peter Kreeft’s favorite plays!

Here are the 15 dramas that Peter Kreeft chose to highlight in his new book, God on Stage, as well as an excerpt from the introduction explaining how and why he chose them: Three Dramas About Life and Joy 1) Dylan Thomas, Under Milk Wood 2) Thornton Wilder, Our Town 3) Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot Three Dramas About Religion (Relationship with God) 4) Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 5) Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons 6) Peter Shaffer, Equus Three Dramas About Suffering 7) Sophocles, Oedipus the King 8) William Nicholson, Shadowlands 9) Archibald MacLeish, J.B. Three Dramas About Death 10) William Shakespeare, Hamlet 11) John Henry Newman, The Dream of Gerontius 12) Cormac McCarthy, The Sunset Limited Three Dramas About Damnation 13) William Shakespeare, Macbeth 14) C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce 15) Jean-Paul Sartre, No Exit And a bonus: The Three Greatest Dramas of All Time The trial and death of Socrates The trial and death of Jesus The Holocaust Stories are humanity's oldest and most universal art. All stories, whether movies or plays or novels or epics or short stories or just parables or jokes, have five aspects, five dimensions: characters, plot, setting, theme, and style. This book focuses on themes, and further focuses on theological themes.  I have selected three plays for each of five subjects or themes or philosophical or theological issues.  The first is the most general, the most global and intuitive: the meaning of and attitude toward human life as a whole. Is there any kind of faith, love, and above all joy, or at least hope for joy, or is there not?  The second is the relation between man and God or the gods, which is the essence of "religion."  The third is the problem of suffering, especially the suffering of a hero or "culture hero."  The fourth is the meaning of death.  The fifth is damnation—a neglected but crucial and passionate theme. It is the other half of the ultimate drama, what Kierkegaard called the "infinite passion." If there is the possibility of salvation, there must be the possibility of damnation.  The three greatest dramas of all time are not stage plays, though they could become stage plays. They are treated in the appendix.  My role is only as a tour guide, not even a mapmaker. My point is just "Look at these!" Or, better, "Look at yourself and your life through these eyes." My point is not how these plays fit into my outline or illustrate my point, as if my point were some great new original discovery. My point is simply their fifteen points, and their relation to your life and your mind. Get this remarkable new book from Peter Kreeft at https://wof.org/stage. GET THE NEW BOOK Word on Fire Catholic Ministries, PO Box 97330, Washington, DC 20090-7330, United States Manage Your Email Preferences .