Things I Never Want to See in a Play Again

Here is a list of things, not ranked, that I never want to see in a play again.

(Confession:  I have definitely written, directed, acted in, and produced plays that included some or all of the following.)

Sometimes things will be in caps, sometimes not, sometimes all caps, but probably not.

I might update this from time-to-time, but I doubt it.

I'm not saying plays with these elements in them are bad or have always been bad, I'm just saying, I think we could take a break from them for awhile.

THE LIST

- Narrators

- Exposition in an opening scene

- Rich white people at a lake house

- Liberal plays written for liberal audiences

- Plays about theater

- Plays where characters seemingly have no jobs but aren't stressed about it and don't seem to have any financial troubles

- Plays with short choppy scenes indicating that the playwright would really like to just jump ahead to when they can adapt the script into a screenplay

- Plays that don't seem to be at all concerned with whether or not somebody can actually mount them

- Plays that center around a "savior" figure, where the lead character is the answer to everyone's problem and they have to drag it out of him or her after three long hours

- Plays where we're continually told how awesome a specific character is despite not being given any evidence that it's true

- Plays that indicate it's okay to be poor because lack of money somehow correlates to its poor characters being blessed with wit and wisdom

- Plays that indicate that only one bad thing happens to anyone at any one time (Where's the play with the guy who loses his wife, gets in a car accident, and gets bitten by a dog all in one day?  That s*** happens, trust me.)

- Plays that Rely on an Actual Place Being Created Onstage Rather Than a Sense of Place

- Plays about the rich people who worked behind the scenes for other rich people throughout history

- Plays Where a Woman Changes a Man for the Better

- Plays Where Nothing Happens for Two Hours and Then EVERYTHING Happens in the Last Twenty Minutes

- Allegorical Plays

- Political Plays That Are Sort of Political But Not Really Kind Of Because They're Set in a Daycare?

- Plays That Revolve Around a Dead Character and His or Her...Secrets

- Plays Where Nobody Ever Says What It Is They Want So We Assume It's Love But It Might Just Be a Sandwich or a Necklace or Something

- Plays Where One Character Says to Another Something Along the Lines of "You Know, Times Are Changing" and the Other Character Is Like "I Know That!" But We Know They Don't Really Know That

- Plays Where Change Is Only Created By Violence

- Plays That Normalize Manipulation Between Two Characters Who Are Vastly Different in Age

- Plays That Don't Teach An Audience Anything

- Plays Where A Middle-Aged Person Makes Bad Decisions For No Discernible Reason Other Than That They're Middle-Aged

- Plays Where Characters Can't Speak Honestly to Each Other Until Alcohol Enters the Picture (That might be life, it doesn't have to be theater)

- Sub-plots (Oh lord, please no more subplots.  Even the name indicates that it's lesser.)

- Plays About Monarchs the Playwright Thinks We've Never Heard Of

- Three-Act Plays (Unless there's a really, really, really, really good reason)