Watch or read play????

My personal view on this question is to do both in order to learn to appreciate the effort that the play writers and directors put to come up with a good play .Recently our class started to have another activity which is watching play. I feel it is something beneficial for me as I enjoy watching the plays. There are so many things in the play that I cannot imagine or visualise especially for those plays of past era. So, through watching plays, I manage to understand to setting and lifestyle of the people in those eras. Setting really influences the story line of a play. For example, the play Oedipus Rex is an Athenian tragedy by Sophocles that was first performed in 429 B.C. Maybe, those who read the play will be able to understand it but it would be hard for them to really get into the play and enjoy it. Moreover, the texts that we read now are mostly translations of the original text. For example, when I read Oedipus Rex, I had difficulties to imagine most of the scenes because it was written many years ago and the writer would have something different in his mind when we wrote those words. Even a single word such as “garland” would have looked different in his era compared to the garlands now. Besides, reading dramatic scenes in the play leaves less impact than watching the same scenes in movie. So, I think it is good for us to have the movie session because in a way it exposes us to different eras. I am able understand the plays better when I watch the movies. Reading plays enable to understand the story and watching plays helps me to enhance my understanding of the plays. The movies give me extra knowledge of the play. We have already watched “Elizabeth” and “Macbeth”. Now, i am looking forward for the movie “Oedipus Rex” as we had already discussed the play in our class.