15 must-read plays

1. Hamlet by William Shakespeare

The ghost of the King of Denmark tells his son Hamlet to avenge his murder by killing the new king, Hamlet's uncle. Hamlet feigns madness, contemplates life and death, and seeks revenge. His uncle, fearing for his life, also devises plots to kill Hamlet.

2. A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen

The play is significant for the way it deals with the fate of a married woman, who at the time in Norway lacked reasonable opportunities for self-fulfillment in a male-dominated world.

3. Leave Taking by Winsome Pinnock

Leave Taking examines the ocean between first and second generation immigrants, each stuck between two romanticised “homelands”, and the sense of alienation that can grow between parent and child.

4. A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

Set in the French Quarter of New Orleans during the restless years following World War Two, A Streetcar Named Desire is the story of Blanche DuBois, a fragile and neurotic woman on a desperate prowl for someplace in the world to call her own.

5. Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe

Doctor Faustus, a respected German scholar, is bored with the traditional types of knowledge available to him. He wants more than logic, medicine, law, and religion. He wants magic. His friends, Valdes and Cornelius, begin to teach him magic, which he uses to summon a devil named Mephistophilis.

6. The Spanish Tragedy by Thomas Kyd

In the introduction to the play, the Ghost of the Spanish courtier Don Andrea explains its history. After Andrea was slain in a battle against Portugal, his Ghost made its way through the underworld, only to find itself sent back to earth.

7. The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster

The play begins as a love story, when the Duchess marries beneath her class, and ends as a nightmarish tragedy as her two brothers undertake their revenge, destroying themselves in the process.

8. The Jew of Malta by Christopher Marlowe

The plot primarily revolves around a Maltese Jewish merchant named Barabas. The story combines religious conflict, intrigue, and revenge, set against a backdrop of the struggle for supremacy between Spain and the Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean, which takes place on the island of Malta.

9. Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare

Set in Rome in 44 BC, the play depicts the moral dilemma of Brutus as he joins a conspiracy led by Cassius to murder Julius Caesar to prevent him from becoming dictator of Rome.

10. The Ferryman by Jez Butterworth

Set in Northern Ireland in 1981, during the height of the Troubles. Quinn, a former terrorist, has swapped his career with the Irish Republican Army (IRA) for a life on the farm in rural Armagh.

11. Look Back in Anger by John Osborne

It focuses on the life and marital struggles of an intelligent and educated but disaffected young man of working-class origin, Jimmy Porter, and his equally competent yet impassive upper-middle-class wife Alison.

12. Mrs. Warren's Profession by George Bernard Shaw

The play is about a former prostitute, now a madam (brothel proprietor), who attempts to come to terms with her disapproving daughter. It demonstrates how the act of prostitution is not caused by moral failure but instead by economic necessity.

13. Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare

The play is set during the latter days of the Roman Empire and tells the fictional story of Titus, a general in the Roman army, who is engaged in a cycle of revenge with Tamora, Queen of the Goths.

14. The Alchemist by Ben Jonson

Follows tricksters Jeremy, Subtle, and Dol as they swindle a series of increasingly naive victims. By pretending to be doctors, astrologers, and alchemists, they deceive their marks and steal their money and valuables.

15. Dido, Queen of Carthage by Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Nashe

The story focuses on the classical figure of Dido, Queen of Carthage. It tells an intense dramatic tale of Dido and her fanatical love for Aeneas (induced by Cupid), Aeneas' betrayal of her and her eventual suicide on his departure for Italy.

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Helen