Need a recommendation for a play

[Jeremy]

My mom is taking an acting class, and asked me to help her find a play featuring one or more scenes with dialogue between a grandmother and a younger woman, preferably with the whole play or a significant sample available online. This is proving to be more difficult than I had first expected.

A stage play is what was requested, but I guess a screenplay would also do in a pinch.

Does anyone have any recommendations fitting these criteria?

[Lacy]

I'm not sure about the content, but when I took those types of classes we used a lot of Tennessee Williams.

[Jenna]

I would consider A.R. Gurney's The Dining Room - there is a scene there between an pushy mother and her daughter (with asides about the aunt, who, became an artist and went to live in Taos.

[Jenna]

Well if your're willing to go for Shakespeare I guess you could do the Nurse/Juliet scene in Romeo and Juliet -- the nurse is usually played as "older" , and Juliet is 13

[Jenna]

(BTW I think finding the content online will be difficult, unless download a copy of script via Kindle.) Shakespeare and (IMO) often clunky/old translation of Moliere, ibsen, Chekhov and the Greeks will be the others readily accessible online

[Jenna]

As I recall there is a scene between an older woman and a younger woman in The Madwoman of Chaillot --not grandmother/granddaughter, but at least that age difference

[Jenna]

Scene between the Countess of Rousillion and Helena (a little older than a teenager, she's in love with the Countess' son) in Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well - pretty sure that scene is in Act 1

[Jenna]

Sorry...striking out on grandmother and younger woman....but here are some other ideas...

Mrs. Warren and her daughter Vivian Warren in Shaw's Mrs. Warren's Profession -- as I recall they have quite a few conversation, but a big argument towards the end of the play...

[Jenna]

definitely some good women scenes in Steel Magnolias (also made into a film with Sally Field and Julia Roberts) and August: Osage County (also a film) and The Beauty Queen of Leenane (which mostly is about an older woman and her middle-aged daughter) that often have older woman/younger woman dynamic

[Jenna]

(Does it have to be a grandmother? I can think of good scenes with women, often even older woman/younger woman, but the grandmother dynamic is definitely styming me.)

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

On Golden Pond was both a stageplay and a screenplay. There are at least a couple? a few? scenes between the elderly mother and the daughter. I have no idea if it's online.

[Jenna]

J. M. Barrie's one-act play The Twelve-Pound Look and Other Plays has a long scene between two women. One is older (but probably more middle-aged, than grandmother) and the other is a younger woman. (You later learn, older woman is first wife to husband of younger woman.) Barrie's play probably is online at Gutenberg or Archive.org because it is out of copyright.

[Jenna]

There might be some two women scene in The Trojan Women between Hecuba and Andromache? (Katherine Hepburn was in a film version as I recall.)

[Jenna]

Lacy wrote: I'm not sure about the content, but when I took those types of classes we used a lot of Tennessee Williams.


There are some scenes between Laura and her mother in The Glass Menagerie....

[Jenna]

I wonder if there are any long enough scenes with Cecily/Miss Prism or Lady Bracknwell/Gwendolyn in Oscar Wildes The Importance of Being Earnest? That one should be online.

[Jeremy]

Thanks for the suggestions, all.
To answer a recurring question, the assignment was specifically dialogue between a grandmother and a younger woman. The age of or relationship to the younger woman isn't specified, but the older woman definitely has to be a grandmother.

[Jenna]

I find that restriction complicates the issue. I have taken many acting classes over the years and while I understand the acting the students to play age (especially more beginning acting students) specifying the grandmother dynamic is problematic. Director ought to have idea in mind. In my opinion. Older woman/younger woman dynamic is understandable.

[Jenna]

August Wilson has some older women characters (such as in Gem of the Ocean) but his plays are written about the African-American experience.

Agnes is about 50 in A Delicate Balance - she has daughters but I'm not sure if her daughters have kids yet. (Honestly not my favourite play. I think I kind of zoned out when I went to see it.)

I suppose first wife Elvira is usually played older in Blithe Spirit (i.e. Angela Lansbury played the part), but she's not (sigh) technically a grandmother.

[Jenna]

Good strong mother roles include Christine (Mourning Becomes Electra, Lavinia (The Little Foxes) -- great scene with her daughter at the end...

[Jenna]

Oh, I think I maybe actually thought of a Grandmother role...Anna in Turgenev's A Month In The Country...but it's been years since I've read it, so I have no idea if there is an extended scene between grandmother and daughter or grand-daughter