Originally Posted by grysqrl
Those plays are only fun to watch because the characters are doing something interesting.

Let's take Chekhov for example. His plays are legendary because of the subtext, the concealed emotions and thoughts that are manifested not in the text itself, but the way that text is presented by actors with pauses, intonations, inflections, etc. being more important then the words they speak. The "doing something interesting" part of his plays is not what the characters do, but how and why.