A Hopefully Helpful List of Two-Handers

My pals at BroadwayRadio invited me to join them for this past Sunday’s “This Week on Broadway“ podcast. We talked about some of our all-time favorite plays (you can hear us by clicking here). Regular panelist Michael Portantiere brought up Martin Sherman’s Bent, a play about the Nazi’s persecution of gay people that also moved me when I saw it back in 1980 with David Dukes and Richard Gere.

Bent’s most affecting scenes are between two men who fall in love while forced to do hard labor in a prison work camp but who, under the constantly forbidding eyes of the guards, are never able to touch. Michael suggested that the play’s intrinsic social-distancing might make it a good choice to schedule when theaters start up again after the coronavirus quarantines end but we’re all still a bit wary about actors being in close physical contact with one another.

Bent has at least 10 characters but thinking about its pivotal scenes got me thinking about all the the plays for just two actors that artistic directors might consider doing once they’re allowed to ease their theaters back into live performances. I fell down a rabbit hole as I tried to remember all the two-handers that would fit that bill.

It was great fun to recall both classics dating from the ‘50s by much-venerated playwrights (Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story) and new works by rookie writers that debuted just last year (Loy A. Webb’s The Light). I thought of shows for two men, for two women as well as for cross-sex couples, and roles for young actors, old ones and actors of varied ethnicities.

All in all, I came up with almost 50 titles, including a handful of musicals, even though it’s probably going to be awhile before anyone is going to feel comfortable with having two people spraying all the droplets that singing produces.

Still, I’m sure I’ve forgotten some great candidates and I hope you’ll let me know what they are (I'll make sure they appear in the comments section below). In the meantime, here’s my list of dramatic (and in some cases comedic) theatrical duets, almost all of which I've been fortunate enough to have actually seen:

[update: a month has now gone by and new titles keep popping into my head and into those of my theatergoing buddy Bill, my blogger pal Jonathan (check out his blog here) and even an anonymous reader. So I've revised the list, with the additions noted in red and the name of the person who proposed it put in parentheses; the uncredited ones are those I thought of after the initial post]

1. Boesman & Lena by Athol Fugard {this is cheating a bit because there is a third character but he is silent}, 1969

 

2. The Blood Knot by Athold Fugard, 1961

 

3. Collected Stories by David Margulies, 1996

 

4. A Couple of White Chicks Sitting Around Talking by John Ford Noonan, 1980

 

5. Constellations by Nick Payne, 2012

 

6. The Dance and the Railroad by David Henry Hwang, 1981

 

7. Dear Liar by Jerome Kilty, 1957 (Bill)

 

8. Dying City by Christopher Shinn, 2007

 

9. Educating Rita by Willy Russell, 1980 (Bill)

 

10. The End of Eddy by Pamela Carter, 2018 (Jonathan)

 

11. Fireflies by Donja R Love, 2018

 

12. Fifty Words by Michael Weller,  2008

 

13. The Fourposter by Jan de Hartog, 1951 (Bill)

 

14. Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune by Terrence McNally, 1987

 

15. Frankie and Will by Talene Monahon, 2020 (Jonathan)

 

16. The Gin Game by Donald L. Coburn, 1976

 

17. Guards at the Taj by Rajiv Joseph, 2015

 

18. The Guys by Anne Nelson, 2001

 

19. The Half-Life of Marie Curie by Lauren Gunderson, 2019

20. Hamlet in Bed by Michael Laurence, 2015

 

21. Happy Days by Samuel Beckett, 1960

 

22. Harry Townsend’s Last Stand by George Eastman, 2019

 

23. Having Our Say by Emily Mann, 1995 (Bill)

 

24. Heisenberg by Simon Stephens, 2015 (Bill)

 

25. Hughie by Eugene O’Neill, 1958

 

26. I and You by Laureen Gunderson, 2016

 

27. In Old Age by Mfoniso Udofia, 2019

 

28. Krapp’s Last Tape by Samuel Beckett, 1958

 

29. Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill by Lanie Robertson, 1986 (Jonathan)

 

30. A Life in the Theatre by David Mamet, 1977

 

31. The Light by Loy A. Webb, 2019

 

32. The Lonely Planet by Steven Dietz, 1994

 

33. Love Letters by A.R.Gurney, 1988

 

34. Mass Appeal by Bill C. Davis 1980

 

35. Matt & Ben by Mindy Kaling and Brenda Withers, 2003

 

36. The Mountaintop by Katori Hall, 2012

 

37. The Niceties by Eleanor Burgess, 2018

 

38. ‘night, Mother by Marsha Norman, 1982

 

39. No One is Forgotten by Winter Miller, 2019

 

40. Oleana by David Mamet, 1992.

 

41. Red by John Logan, 2009

 

42. Same Time, Next Year by Bernard Slade, 1975

 

43. Sea Wall/A Life by Nicholas Payne and Simon Stephens, 2019

 

44. Sex With Strangers by Laura Eason, 2014

 

45. Slowgirl by Greg Pierce, 2012

 

46. A Steady Rain by Keith Huff, 2007

 

47. The Sound Inside by Adam Rapp 2019

 

48. Switzerland by Joanna Murray-Smith, 2019

 

49. Talley’s Folly by Lanford Wilson, 1980

 

50. Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks, 2001

 

51. Two for the Seesaw by William Gibson, 1958

 

52. Underground Railroad Game by Jennifer Kidwell and Scott Sheppard, 2016

 

53. Venus In Fur by David Ives 2010

 

54. Vita & Virginia by Eileen Atkins, 1992 (Bill)

 

55. A Walk in the Woods by Lee Blessing (an anonymous reader)

 

56. The Zoo Story by Edward Albee, 1958

 

And here are a few musicals for two:

1. Broadbend, Arkansas by Ted Shen, Ellen Fitzhugh and Harrison David Rivers, 2019

 

2. Daddy Long Legs by John Caird and Paul Gordon, 2015

 

3. I Do! I Do! by Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones, 1968

 

4. John and Jen by Andrew Lippa, 1995

 

5. The Last Five Years by Jason Robert Brown, 2002

 

6.  Murder for Two by Joe Kinosian and Kellen Blair, 2013

 

7.  The Story of My Life by Neil Bartram and Brian Hill 2009