What do you think?
Rate this book
The Asian Plays #1-3
The Asian Plays: Fanshen / Saigon / A Map of the World
Book by Hare, David
- GenresDrama
229 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1986
About the author
David Hare
120 books84 followersSir David Hare (born 5 June 1947) is an English playwright, screenwriter and theatre and film director. Most notable for his stage work, Hare has also enjoyed great success with films, receiving two Academy Award nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay for writing The Hours in 2002, based on the novel written by Michael Cunningham, and The Reader in 2008, based on the novel of the same name written by Bernhard Schlink.
On West End, he had his greatest success with the plays Plenty, which he adapted into a film starring Meryl Streep in 1985, Racing Demon (1990), Skylight (1997), and Amy's View (1998). The four plays ran on Broadway in 1982–83, 1996, 1998 and 1999 respectively, earning Hare three Tony Award nominations for Best Play for the first three and two Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play. Other notable projects on stage include A Map of the World, Pravda, Murmuring Judges, The Absence of War and The Vertical Hour. He wrote screenplays for the film Wetherby and the BBC drama Page Eight (2011).
As of 2013, Hare has received two Academy Award nominations, three Golden Globe Award nominations, three Tony Award nominations and has won a BAFTA Award, a Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and two Laurence Olivier Awards. He has also been awarded several critics' awards such as the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, and received the Golden Bear in 1985. He was knighted in 1998.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ha...
On West End, he had his greatest success with the plays Plenty, which he adapted into a film starring Meryl Streep in 1985, Racing Demon (1990), Skylight (1997), and Amy's View (1998). The four plays ran on Broadway in 1982–83, 1996, 1998 and 1999 respectively, earning Hare three Tony Award nominations for Best Play for the first three and two Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play. Other notable projects on stage include A Map of the World, Pravda, Murmuring Judges, The Absence of War and The Vertical Hour. He wrote screenplays for the film Wetherby and the BBC drama Page Eight (2011).
As of 2013, Hare has received two Academy Award nominations, three Golden Globe Award nominations, three Tony Award nominations and has won a BAFTA Award, a Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and two Laurence Olivier Awards. He has also been awarded several critics' awards such as the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, and received the Golden Bear in 1985. He was knighted in 1998.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ha...
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 25, 2020
I’d not read any David Hare before these three plays – ‘Fanshen’ (1975), ‘Saigon’ (1983), and ‘A Map of the World’ (1983).
I didn’t bother with ‘Saigon’ which is a film script, simply because I didn’t feel up to coping with the format, and decided to read ‘A Map of the World’ first.
This play I found hard to enjoy on the page as it pops in and out of ordinary everyday reality into a film set in where we see actors acting as they are, we are to imagine, being filmed. Tricky to follow when you’re reading the script, as the actors on the page bear the names of those they are playing in the film, not the names of those they are playing in ‘the play’. Hare writes in his introduction that he has had difficulty directing the play – designed to be an epic about the trials and tribulations of the contemporary developing world - on three occasions, and that it’s a bit of a mess. Setting that aside, I think my difficulty on the page would be alleviated by seeing the play performed, just as, for me, I find Tom Stoppard dull on the page and – still incomprehensibly to me, and therefore miraculously – engaging when performed.
With ‘Fanshen’ I felt on more familiar Brechtian ground. This is a play that charts the processes of and the difficulties encountered in that process of educating and converting a peasant society – uneducated, conservative, unempowered, but angry and keenly sensitive to notions of unfairness and injustice – to a communist one. Quite a lot of it I found bewilderingly intense (accentuated by the political linguistics of revolutionary theory), but felt the play was one that reflected the power struggles, the traps that await you if you step out of whatever the latest line may be, and the raw energy of sudden social transformation.
2.5 stars, really – liked one, didn’t like the other.
I didn’t bother with ‘Saigon’ which is a film script, simply because I didn’t feel up to coping with the format, and decided to read ‘A Map of the World’ first.
This play I found hard to enjoy on the page as it pops in and out of ordinary everyday reality into a film set in where we see actors acting as they are, we are to imagine, being filmed. Tricky to follow when you’re reading the script, as the actors on the page bear the names of those they are playing in the film, not the names of those they are playing in ‘the play’. Hare writes in his introduction that he has had difficulty directing the play – designed to be an epic about the trials and tribulations of the contemporary developing world - on three occasions, and that it’s a bit of a mess. Setting that aside, I think my difficulty on the page would be alleviated by seeing the play performed, just as, for me, I find Tom Stoppard dull on the page and – still incomprehensibly to me, and therefore miraculously – engaging when performed.
With ‘Fanshen’ I felt on more familiar Brechtian ground. This is a play that charts the processes of and the difficulties encountered in that process of educating and converting a peasant society – uneducated, conservative, unempowered, but angry and keenly sensitive to notions of unfairness and injustice – to a communist one. Quite a lot of it I found bewilderingly intense (accentuated by the political linguistics of revolutionary theory), but felt the play was one that reflected the power struggles, the traps that await you if you step out of whatever the latest line may be, and the raw energy of sudden social transformation.
2.5 stars, really – liked one, didn’t like the other.
November 9, 2024
Fanshen was the best among the three. It probably is helped by the source material, a non-fiction book that chronicles the peasant revolution in china. It is insightful and gripping. Saigon which chronicles the withdrawal of US from Vietnam is interesting because of its contemporary parallels with Afghanistan withdrawal. A map of the world is a satire about international aid organizations which is funny at times, but its critique is neither compelling nor new.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews