Social Question
What are your favourite stage directions?
Thanks to the wonderful professors at my university, I have been bitten by the drama bug and have been consuming plays. Last quarter, we read Tamburlaine the Great by Christopher Marlowe which has one of the most graphic (not to mention peculiar) stage directions that I have ever come across: ”[He brains himself against the cage.]”
Of course another stand out that comes to mind is this infamous gem from William Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale: ”Exit, pursued by a bear”.
My favourite stage directions are from James M. Barrie’s Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up during the incredibly moving “Do you believe in faeries?” scene, such as:
”(TINK has to tell her tale, in one long ungrammatical sentence.)”
”(He rises and throws out his arms he knows not to whom, perhaps to the boys and girls of whom he is not one.)”
And of course, my absolute favourite:
”Many clap, some don’t, a few hiss.”
Do you have a favourite stage direction from a play or musical?
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