30 PLAYS IN 30 DAYS: Play #30 "Little Murders" by Jules Feiffer

 

The Penguin Edition of the Play, featuring a still from the film adaptation

I can't believe it... September is almost over, and my challenge is officially finished. I have read 30 plays in 30 days. Today, I will do my daily write up of the day's play, but tomorrow, I will write a little bit about the value of this experience, and how reading plays every day has made me feel great, and taught me a great deal, too. In short, I recommend it if you are looking for inspiration. But more on that tomorrow. In the meantime...

Play #30

Little Murders by Jules Feiffer

I have said this about several of the plays I have read this month, but Little Murders, despite being dated in some regards, is honestly just as relevant today, if not more so. I had read the play a number of years ago, probably as a teenager or young adult, but couldn't remember it--- strange, since as I read it today, I realized it was a piece that really hits my sweet spot as a reader and audience member--- a savage and savagely funny satire and dark comedy that brilliantly and forcefully depicts an America where violence, and particularly gun violence, is as American as apple pie (as Clive Barnes wrote)... or, in other words, simply America. Feiffer said he was inspired to write the story after the assassination of JFK (though he was not necessarily a fan), which was quickly followed upon by the assassination of Oswald, and the violence in Vietnam:  "So the motive of the play was the breakdown of all forms of authority--- religion, family, the police. Urban violence was always the metaphor in my mind for something more serious in the country." (Quote from the New York Times)

The play begins in the Newquist family's apartment: the matriarch, Marjorie needs to prepare for dinner, as grown daughter Patsy is bringing her new boyfriend Alfred over to meet her family. Carol, the patriarch (who hates being called by his given name of Carol), figures he will have to booze up the young man to find that he isn't good enough for his daughter. He is adamant that every boyfriend of Patsy's has not been a "real man", and questions their sexuality, all while ignoring his son Kenny, living at home but attending college, who may be closeted. Patsy, a very positive, bright, and strong daughter arrives. She is adored by her father and brother, yet her mother seems somewhat uncomfortable around her. Alfred, her new boyfriend, is a big guy with bruises all over his face--- because of his size, he says that people always want to pick fights with him. He lets them beat on him (as long as they don't touch his cameras--- he is a photographer) until they tire out. This does not sit well with Carol:

CAROL: Christ Jesus, you're not a pacifist?

PATSY: (warning) Daddy...

ALFRED: (slowly shaking his head) An apathist. 

Patsy, in fact, can't pull herself away from Alfred because he is so different--- he won't fight, and because of this, she can't win a fight with him. 

The family and guest sit down for dinner amidst rolling blackouts and gunshots going on at a fairly regular rate outside the window. And this continues all throughout the play, the gunshots, even before the wedding of Alfred and Patsy (after a big to-do because Alfred doesn't want God mentioned in the ceremony) until, ultimately, there are tragic results from the gunshots, leading to the death of a major character (I won't say which one). Bringing about an ending that essentially paints the picture that the American way of dealing with gun violence is by becoming perpetrators of it yourself. 

Jules Feiffer was known as a cartoonist first, at the Village Voice (where he produced the weekly comic strip Feiffer until 1997) before garnering a reputation as a writer and playwright, though as Clive Barnes noted, his cartoons are always monologues from a character, or dialogues.  He wrote the animated short Munro which won an Academy Award. He also wrote a novel called Harry, the Rat With Women in 1963. 

Little Murders  first appeared on Broadway in 1967, featuring Elliot Gould (who would later star in the film adaptation), but it was iced out by critics and closed after seven performances. It fared better in London. But then in 1969, it was staged Off-Broadway, where it probably belonged in the first place, in a production featuring Fred Willard and directed by Alan Arkin (who would helm the film), and received great reviews and ran for 400 performances. 

Feiffer is 92, and, from what I could find, he is still teaching at an MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton. He won a Pultizer for Editorial Cartooning, and is in the Comic Book Hall of Fame. 

I cannot tell you how much I love this play. It is the type of bold, dark comedy that I find both hilarious and poignant and important... the kind of work I like to do myself from time to time. I would love to see it produced a whole bunch--- as I say, it is still very relevant. 

If you are interested in reading it or licensing it for production, you can do so by clicking this link to CONCORD THEATRICALS.

Any thoughts on this play or this film?  What are some other great plays you think I should read and discuss? Please feel free to comment. 

And if you're interested in my work, check out My List of Publications.

30 PLAYS IN 30 DAYS: Play #29 "Salomé" by Oscar Wilde

 

I am reading 30 Plays in the 30 Days of September and discussing them here. I can't believe the month is almost over...

Play #29

Salomé by Oscar Wilde

The original version of this play was written in French in 1891 and translated into English three years later. The first production was in Paris in 1896, because it was banned in Britain because of its depiction of Biblical characters. It would not be performed there until 1931. 

One might remember that this play was written before Oscar Wilde had success with plays such as A Woman of No Importance and The Importance of Being Earnest (which I had the pleasure of directing a while back). This one act tragedy bears little resemblance the quick witted comedies that many associate with Wilde, though the luxurious use of language is still on display. 

Salomé is the stepdaughter of Herod Antipas, who is having a drunken party. He and his guests have been leering inappropriately at Salomé all evening, so she steps away and hears the voice of Jokanaan the prophet (John the Baptist), who is being held prisoner. She demands to see him, even though it is not allowed, and is drawn to him, though he calls her harlot and such. She wants to kiss his mouth and he rejects her. She persists and he continues to reject her, to the point where the young Syrian captain of the guard, upset that she wants another man, kills himself. Right there between them. Just kills himself. 

Right there. 

Salomé doesn't pay the corpse much mind but tells Jokanaan that she will kiss his mouth one day. He is taken back to his cell, and Herod comes to find Salomé, slipping on the blood of the young captain (a bad omen--- of course). The old perv wants his stepdaughter to dance for him, even though his wife, Salomé's mother Herodias, is right there. Salomé says she will dance for Herod, against her mother's objections, so long as Herod swears to give her anything she wants in return. He gives the oath. She dances the dance of the seven veils. Herod is super happy, the old perv. Then Salomé tells him what she wants. 

The head of Jokanaan. (spoiler alert: yes, she does kiss it)

Salomé is not named in the Bible, but is only known as Herod's stepdaughter who asks for the head of John the Baptist. Apparently, Oscar Wilde has been interested in writing on the subject of Salomé since his Oxford days. 

Like most everything Wilde ever wrote, it is a well-written with wonderful turns of phrase:

"Only in mirrors should one look," says Herod in one of his speeches, "for mirrors do but show us masks."

Salomé has been adapted in many different media (including a film with Al Pacino and Jessica Chastain), and there are countless pieces of art depicting the young woman with a head on a platter. For all of this, I do not think this particular play is what people think of when they think of Oscar Wilde... I know I can't help but think of Earnest or An Ideal Husband or his beautiful collection of fairy tales. I once had the good fortune to play Oscar Wilde himself (though he was much, much taller than I) in a production of a play called Wilde West by Charles Marowitz, which depicts on Wilde on his American tour (which did happen) where he meets outlaw Jesse James (which did not happen). It was a great pleasure to play a genuine genius and to learn about his life. 

Have you read Salomé?  Let me know in the comments!

30 PLAYS IN 30 DAYS: Bonus Play "My Left Breast" by Susan Miller

 

Here is another bonus play for my "30 Plays in 30 Days" September reading challenge. My Left Breast by Susan Miller is a one-woman show that I found in a collection I have of The Best American Short Plays 1993-1994. The play originally premiered at the Actors Theatre of Louisville in the 1994 Humana Festival where Miller performed the piece herself. 

A multi-layered monologue, My Left Breast tells the story of a "one-breasted, menopausal, Jewish bisexual lesbian Mom", from a diagnoses of breast cancer through a mastectomy, from raising her son, to a breakup of a long-term relationship, and a diagnoses of osteoporosis... and through it all, Miller tells the story in a very human way, with plenty of humor, insight and poignancy.  I found the descriptions in the aftermath of her breakup relatable, and one can feel the no-holds barred honesty as she approaches each subject with a kind of grace in her writing.

Susan Miller received an Obie and shared the 1994/1995 Blackburn Prize for the play. It is published by Playscripts, Inc., a very fine publishing house (they carry two of my plays), so if you are interested in reading the play or licensing it for performance, you can visit their website by CLICKING HERE.

If you know this play, have read it, seen it, or performed it, let me know your thoughts by commenting on this post. If you would like to learn more about my plays, you can do so by CLICKING HERE.

30 PLAYS IN 30 DAYS: Play #28 "Indians" by Arthur Kopit

 

I have decided for the month of September to read 30 plays in 30 days. It is my belief that, if possible, a play should be read in one sitting to get a better inherent sense of the dramatic arc. Each day, I will write a short post here about the play of the day.

Play #28

Indians by Arthur Kopit

If Arthur Kopit had stopped writing plays after his debut with Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You In The Closet And I'm Feelin' So Sad: A Pseudoclassical Tragifarce in a Bastard French Tradition, I would still consider him one of the most important American dramatists of his time, and, perhaps, of any time. That play proved to be prophetic about the sixties and the very notion of revolution, a theme shared in the brilliant one act play Madam Popov by Gladden Schrock. Fortunately for all of us, Kopit continued to write plays, including the brilliant Indians which I have finally read today. 

Again, I am glad that I saved it in a way, because the play seems even more relevant and tragic today as it did at the time it was written. Michael Patterson wrote in The Oxford Guide to Plays that Kopit "turned to a more serious political investigation of the white settlers' treatment of Native Americans," and that "Kopit's play was one of the first major pieces to confront the issue and to relate it to continuing genocide in South-East Asia." 

Indeed, I kept thinking as I read the play how it should be required reading in every high school in America, whether in history or English classes, with discussions about a country built on white supremacy and a notion of exceptionalism. 

Unlike Oh Dad, Poor Dad, which Kopit reportedly wrote in five days (!), Indians took a number of years to research, write, stage, rewrite, re-stage and rewrite some more (Kopit admitted this could have been a process for his entire lifetime with this particular piece). 

Indians sets out to obliterate the American myths of the wild west, our culture of "Cowboys vs. Indians," with the great white roughriders saving innocent white folks from the bloodthirsty savages with their trusty six-shooters. The play deftly cuts between Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show (something that caused a great deal of damage with its mythic nonsense of cowboy heroes, as did the dime novels of Ned Buntline, also a character in the play) and a so-called presidential commission meeting with Sitting Bull to hear their grievances about the American government's lies and broken promises to his people.  And the play also deals with the massacre at Wounded Knee and makes no bones about the fact that it was a completely politically motivated act of genocide. 

While this theater blog and this project is not meant to be political, I cannot help but say for a moment that the history of America needs to be told in honest terms. I even know people who will say it is tragic what happened, but seem to say so with a tone that suggest that it had to be this way. As Indians helps to reinforce, IT DID NOT HAVE TO BE THIS WAY. The American Government chose for it to be this way. When cheating Indigenous People out of their land, moving them to reservations, refusing to help them as promised, when all this didn't work, then there were the smallpox blankets, the massacres, the notion of wiping them out as though they were just a speedbump in progress. It did not have to be this way. Sadly, what people aren't really saying is, "It had to be this way to maintain white dominance, supremacy, and expansion." 

But back to the theater...

Kopit's final script is brilliantly structure, powerful and heartbreaking. Like his other pieces, it is also wonderfully theatrical and moves along at an exceptional pace, with brilliant dialogue, visual mastery and moment of dark and ironic humor. He clearly researched this with his heart and kept working to make it the best version of itself it could be, and it shows. 

After productions in London and Washington (with rewrites after each), Indians opened in New York on Broadway in October of 1969. Theater heavyweight Stacy Keach played Buffalo Bill, and other greats like Manu Tupou, Raul Julia, Charles Durning, and Sam Waterston appeared in it. And as much as I loved reading it, I am sure it is even more powerful to watch. 

The play was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award. In 1976, Robert Altman adapted it into a movie called Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson, which did not fare well as the country was celebrating its bicentennial.

Aruthur Kopit would also be a Pulitzer finalist for his play Wings, which also received a Tony nomination for Best Play. He would receive another Tony nomination for Best Book of a Musical for Nine, an adaptation of the film 81/2. With his Nine collaborator, he wrote the book for Phantom, an adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera that was overshadowed by Andrew Lloyd Webber's, though many critics prefer the Kopit version with music by Maury Yeston.

Sadly, Mr. Kopit passed away just this last April at the age of 83. He had been living with progressive dementia prior to his death. 

He will always be one of my heroes, and reading Indians today only solidifies my feelings on the matter. 

If you are interested in producing the play, it is licensed by Concord Theatricals, and you can learn more about it by CLICKING HERE.

Thanks for reading, and feel free to comment with your thoughts on this play or on Arthur Kopit below. If you are looking for a great Christmas play, check out A Wicked Christmas Carol, by me, which combines the worlds of Dickens and L. Frank Baum's Oz books. You can learn more by CLICKING HERE.

30 PLAYS IN 30 DAYS: BONUS PLAY "Come Down Burning" by Kia Corthron

 

Today, I have another bonus play. I read a full-length, and, tonight, read a brilliant one act play called Come Down Burning by Kia Corthron. It is in a collection called The Best American Short Plays 1993-1994, which was given to me by my high school drama coach and dear friend, Tom Lyford. 

Kia Corthron has written many plays, as well as the novel The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter which won the 2016 Center For Fiction First Novel Prize. She also wrote episodes for the television series The Jury and The Wire. 

Come Down Burning centers around two grown sisters: Skoolie, the elder sister, who is paralyzed from her waist down due to a fall from tree as a child, and Tee, the younger sister with three children, who always needs help from Skoolie. It is established that Skoolie is the strong one, despite her physical condition, and she can move around fiercely in a wooden cart her father had made for her years ago, a cart with wheels on the bottom. Already, Corthron has inverted a cliche in a terrific manner by making Skoolie the one who takes care of the family. Tee has moved in with her three children, ages 9, 6 and a baby of just 3 months, and we learn it is not the first time that Skoolie has had to take Tee in and take care of her. Tee defers to Skoolie on most things, like how best to feed the baby, and how to deal with a mean teacher who is singling out her daughter, but this begins to build a kind of resentment--- in truth, a feeling that has probably been building in Tee for years

Skoolie makes money doing hair, and also performing illegal abortions on the side. Though Tee has three children is pregnant again, we learn two of her children had died, most likely because of malnourishment brought on by poverty. Class, race and poverty is dealt with in a strong manner in this play, though not in any way that feels preachy. Tee needs to make a decision about the pregnancy, and how to move forward, and if she can even move forward without her older sister's help. 

But even more than help, she wants Skoolie's approval. 

I will not go into the ending here, only to say that it was a very powerful piece and that Corthron packs a great deal of emotion into a a short piece. Her language is also poetic, yet still feels natural and real. 

Come Down Burning had a workshop production at the Long Wharf Theatre, and then premiered at the American Place Theater in 1993. To learn more about it, or to order a copy yourself, you can CLICK HERE.

Thanks for reading, and please feel free to comment if you have any thoughts about Kia Corthron's intense one act play, or with any recommendations for plays that I may not have read or discussed. If you would like to learn more about my published plays, please CLICK HERE. 

30 PLAYS IN 30 DAYS: Play #27 "Mary, Mary" by Jean Kerr

 

 I have decided for the month of September to read 30 plays in 30 days. It is my belief that, if possible, a play should be read in one sitting to get a better inherent sense of the dramatic arc. Each day, I will write a short post here about the play of the day.

Play #27

Mary, Mary by Jean Kerr

Mary, Mary opened on Broadway in March of 1961 at the original Helen Hayes Theater. It ran for 3 years and 9 months before it transferred to the Morasco. It ended up closing December 12, 1964 after 1,572 performances. 

Let me say it again--- 1,572 performances. 

That makes it the longest-running non-musical play of the 1960s.  The play ran much longer than the film adaptation of it. 

Now, if you were to have asked me what the longest-running Broadway non-musical play of the 1960s had been I probably would have guessed one of Neil Simon's comedies, either The Odd Couple or Barefoot in the Park. 

How happy I am to have been wrong!  I confess, I find it incredibly refreshing that a female playwright writing a character about a woman who has grown in to finding her agency was such an incredible success. And here's the thing--- it is a pure joy to read, and I imagine is even more fun to see onstage. 

Mary, Mary begins with Bob, divorced for about nine months, in the midst of planning to get remarried to Tiffany. He is having money and tax problems, so his friend Oscar, an accountant, comes to his apartment to help him out. Unbeknownst to Bob, Oscar has asked Bob's ex-wife, the titular Mary, to come and help, as she might be able to help, as she and Bob had shared expenses before their divorce. Bob is nervous to see Mary, to the extent that he doesn't want to be left alone with her, and certainly doesn't want Tiffany, his new bride-to-be to meet her. When Mary arrives, she is stronger, more fashionable and perhaps a bit more confident than her ex-husband remembers. 

And she is very funny. 

Yes, I think Mary is a very cool character who, after the divorce (which was her husband's idea), has worked to become the version of herself that she wants to be. Yes, she still has feelings for ex-husband, and yes, sometimes her confidence wavers, but this is a character who, as John Gassner put it, is just as intelligent and funny as... well, Jean Kerr herself.  I like how the play even ends on Mary's own terms. Further, the role of Tiffany, the younger new wife, is also treated like a genuine character, in a role that many playwrights might have written as an airhead young trophy wife, Tiffany also shows her own agency and deeper layers.  

There is a subplot about a movie star who wants to publish a book with Bob's publishing company who meets Mary and develops feelings for her, seeing her in a way that Bob never did... until, perhaps, it was too late.

Or was it?

This is by no means a perfect play, but I understand why it was so successful. These characters are pleasant to be around. Jean Kerr, also known for her best-selling collection of essays, Please Don't Eat the Daisies, has one-liners that even Neil Simon would admire. And sorry to keep making the Neil Simon comparison, but I just find it strange that I had never really heard of Jean Kerr's plays until recently. I wonder why she or this comedy isn't as widely produced as some of Simon's classics. Yes, the play is a little dated perhaps, but so are Neil's. 

In any case, the play didn't exactly end as I had wanted it to, but it ended in an honest way that, again, didn't short change Mary's growth as a character, and even allowed Bob a little growth, too. Underneath the jokes, there are some genuine ideas about relationships and men and women that might not be groundbreaking, but are interesting. 

Jean Kerr was married to the Broadway writer and critic Walter Kerr, and they collaborated on such projects as Goldilocks the Musical and the Tony award-winning King of Hearts. 

Jean Kerr passed away in 2003 at the age of 80. Her last play, Lunch Hour was staged in 1980.  

If you're interested in staging Mary, Mary you can learn more about doing so on the Dramatist Play Service Website for it. 

Looking for a great new play for the Christmas season?  Check out my play A Wicked Christmas Carol, which blends the worlds of Dickens and L. Frank Baum's Oz books, providing terrific roles for women with a spin on a classic. CLICK HERE for details. 

30 PLAYS IN 30 DAYS: BONUS PLAY "This Property is Condemned" by Tennessee Williams

 

I have given myself the challenge of reading 30 plays for the 30 days of September and to write about them here on my blog. Today, after reading the Summer and Smoke, I was so taken with the Prologue featuring the Young John and Young Alma, that I went back and read Tennessee Williams' short play, This Property is Condemned. And while I will not consider it one of my 30 plays for the 30 days of September (it's probably a 15-minute read, tops, probably closer to 10), I will still discuss it here briefly. 

While Tennessee Williams is primarily known for his full-length works that made him one of the most important American playwrights of the 20th century, (particularly A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,  both winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama), I have always been fond of a number of his short plays for their ability to pack some serious emotional weight while being short and precise. I think This Property is Condemned is maybe the best example of this gift. 

The two-character play begins with Tom, about 12 or 13, out with his kite, and a young woman of 13 named Willie is walking down the railroad tracks with a ragged doll in one hand and sorry looking banana in the other. Willie is dressed in clothes that are too old for her, and has childishly rubbed rouge on her face. She asks Willie to hold her doll and and not talk to her until she falls off the tracks--- which she does after a few more moments. 

As the two kids talk, it is clear that Willie is not in the best of circumstances. Since her older sister Alva's death, her life has crumbled. Her sister was promiscuous with the railroad men, or so it was said. Willie's mother ran off with a man from the railroad, and her father took to drinking and disappeared. She lives alone in their house now, which has a sign on it reading: THIS PROPERTY IS CONDEMNED. She is alone, though she says she has inherited her sister's clothes and her beaux. Tom has even heard that Willie danced for one of his friends, which Willie doesn't deny. She merely said she was lonesome at the time. 

Willie is a heartbreaking character, and the short play is a perfect portrait and duet for two talented young performers. I am happy tat Williams doesn't answer every question about Willie's life, and that we don't know exactly when she is lying and when she is telling the truth. It is a fascinating short piece. 

A full-length movie was made in 1966 that expands the story and dramatizes Willie's stories about her older sister Alva. And while I have heard good things about the film, I think I prefer the short, ambiguous, yet emotional piece written for the stage. I don't think we need to see Alva's story. It's about how Alva's story brought Willie to where she is now--- that's the engaging part of it for me. 

I hope you enjoyed this bonus discussion for This Property is Condemned. Please feel free to keep on coming back to my blog.  And if you're interested in a cool new Christmas Play, you can learn about my play A Wicked Christmas Carol that combines the worlds of Dickens and of L. Frank Baum's Oz books by CLICKING HERE. 

30 PLAYS IN 30 DAYS: Play #26 "Summer and Smoke" by Tennessee Williams

 

I have decided for the month of September to read 30 plays in 30 days. It is my belief that, if possible, a play should be read in one sitting to get a better inherent sense of the dramatic arc. Each day, I will write a short post here about the play of the day.

Play #26

Summer and Smoke by Tennessee Williams

One can't really have  discussion about 20th century American theater without mentioning Tennessee Williams (born Thomas Lanier Williams III). Along with biggies like Eugene O'Neill, he is considered to be one of the most important dramatists of the era--- his play A Streetcar Named Desire is considered as seminal an American work as O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. His first major success came with The Glass Menagerie when he was just 33, and the prolific, lyrical playwright followed it up with a string of hits, including winning the Pulitzer Prize for Drama twice, once for the aforementioned Streetcar and again for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. 

Summer and Smoke opened in 1948, his first follow-up to Streetcar, though he had been working on it since 1945 under the title Chart of Anatomy (such a chart is pivotal in the play). The play is sort of a love story (or maybe, more appropriately, a love story that doesn't really happen) between Alma, the minister's daughter, and John, following in his father's footsteps by becoming a doctor. Alma, her name meaning "soul", believes in the spirit within a person, while John is more interested in the flesh. The play is told in two parts--- Summer and Winter--- and in many ways is a philosophical argument between these two ways of looking at humans (argument being the word the characters use). Alma loves John, believes he could ascend to be above what he is in the first part, that is, a drunkard who goes after pleasure where he can find it. By the end, however, Alma and John have reversed, or so we are led to think--- she has "won the argument" according to John, who now believes in the soul, and Alma is no longer sure of such things... only sure that she loves him and can't be with him. Now, I say that John has supposedly changed, though, by the end, he is with a woman who he admits is still "just a child", who we first met as a 16 year-old student with a school girl crush on him.  So... yeah. 

While Tennessee Williams is always a pleasure to read--- he is such a gifted writer and spins an interesting tale that you want to see reconciled--- this play is not his best. Alma really is little more than a symbol for the spirit, and her "nervous attacks" (John gets her hooked on pills for that--- yay) and strange laughter feel more like quirks than actual character traits. John is also too much of a symbol, and, as mentioned before, I did not find his journey believable or earned. Nor did what keeps them apart at the end seem genuine to me, either. 

I know this sounds like I didn't like the play, but that is not true at all. It really is a great read, and Williams, very specific in his stage directions, sets up a nice visual picture, and there are beautifully written monologues. 

Interestingly enough, this story must have kept kicking around in Williams' head, because he rewrote the play in 1964 with the title The Eccentricities of a Nightingale. It is said that he prefers this play to Summer and Smoke, and some of the criticisms about the character Alma are said to be rectified in Nightingale. This, of course, makes me want to find a copy of it so I can do a side-by-side compare/contrast... perhaps some day. 

One final note: the play begins with a Prologue of a young John and Alma at the fountain (which also is of importance in the play). It is a short scene, but I really like it. Williams, in my opinion, was pretty good at writing children, and I almost wish this scene had been longer. Makes me want to take another look at his excellent one-act, This Property is Condemned. 

Thanks for reading, and please feel free to check out the rest of my blog. If you're interested in my plays, you can click HERE, HERE, HERE or even HERE

30 PLAYS IN 30 DAYS: Play #25 "Hunger and Thirst" by Eugene Ionesco

 I have decided for the month of September to read 30 plays in 30 days. It is my belief that, if possible, a play should be read in one sitting to get a better inherent sense of the dramatic arc. Each day, I will write a short post here about the play of the day.

Play #25

Hunger and Thirst by Eugene Ionesco

I have mentioned my abiding love of the Theatre of the Absurd before on many occasions, and when it comes to writers I am fascinated by, Eugene Ionesco is near the top of the list. While I certainly am a fan of works like Rhinoceros, Exit the King, The Killer, The Bald Soprano (an anti-play) and others, it was some of his shorter plays like The Chairs and Jack or the Submission that really turned me on and blew my mind by their creativity. Ionesco's influence is huge, no doubt. Just read Albee's The American Dream and The Sandbox--- they are practically overflowing with Ionesco's influence.

Hunger and Thirst is labelled as 3 episodes. The first, called "The Flight", finds Jean dissatisfied at his new home with his wife Marie-Madeleine and their small baby in a cradle. As much as his wife adores him and comforts him, he feels a lack. There is a strange (it is Ionesco after all) visit from an Aunt who may or may not be dead (you can see in scenes like this how Ionesco also influenced comic writers like Christopher Durang), and after, Jean plays a prolonged gamed of hide and seek with his wife before disappearing altogether. And while she honestly believes that he cannot tear out his love from his heart, he does so, symbolically, in order to set out for something different. 

Episode 2, "The Rendezvous" finds Jean at a gorgeous mountain top museum, waiting to meet a woman, who may in fact just be some idealized version of something that does not exist. He waits and waits, while the two museum keepers look on him. In this episode, one might be able to see how Beckett influenced Ionesco... Ionesco, in the one interview I could find with him that was subtitled, talked about his love for Beckett's work. 

Episode 3, "The Black Masses of the Good Inn" finds Jean taking rest at an Inn (or is it a monastery?). The "brothers" who work their keep filling his plates and his drink-- and he keeps eating and drinking, never sated, a physical literal representation of his dissatisfaction in the first episode. The brothers then put on a show for him, which, in truth, goes on a bit too long and becomes a little tedious, though the message is strong--- it demonstrates belief as a kind of conformity, or, perhaps, conformity as a means to being fed. After the play, Jean finds himself in Inn (or monastery's) debt, though he sees visions of his wife and daughter, the baby girl now 15, waiting for him. Though he wants nothing more than to at last go home, it is time for him to feed others. 

There is much to be admired in this play (though I do think a good 5 pages could be cut from the final episode), and I underlined a great deal of it. The ending is powerful, and, as usual, Ionesco reveals some frightening truths in a manner both dark and comedic all at the same time. 

I thought it was brilliant.  

30 PLAYS IN 30 DAYS: Play #24 "I Hate Hamlet" by Paul Rudnick

 

I have decided for the month of September to read 30 plays in 30 days. It is my belief that, if possible, a play should be read in one sitting to get a better inherent sense of the dramatic arc. Each day, I will write a short post here about the play of the day.

Play #24

I Hate Hamlet by Paul Rudnick

When I was accepted into the acting program of Boston University's School for the Arts, I was given a t-shirt that had an image of John Barrymore as Hamlet with a speech bubble proclaiming, "To B.U. or not to B.U."  I mention this not only because even after all of these years I am proud to have been accepted into such a competitive program (ah, the days when I really believed I had the talent to actually make something of myself--- but I digress), but to give you an idea how John Barrymore, of one of the big theatrical families (and yes, he is the same Barrymore as Drew) is considered one of the most famous American Hamlets. In fact, after his 101 performances as Hamlet on Broadway, he was called "the greatest living American tragedian." 

Thus, of course he appears as a ghost in Paul Rudnick's I Hate Hamlet. In a note before the text, Rudnick tells how the play was inspired because he answered an ad in the New York Times real estate section for a "medieval duplex", to find that the apartment had been occupied by Barrymore in 1917.  I Hate Hamlet is about a handsome, though somewhat bland television actor of questionable talent, Andrew Rally, who decided to audition for Hamlet in the park after his television series was cancelled. He has rented a new apartment in New York, and, lo and behold, it once belonged to Barrymore. After a wacky seance (that, truthfully, doesn't feel earned) run by his wacky real estate agent, Barrymore is summoned---- though what really brought him back was to help the young actor prepare for the greatest role in the English-speaking theater. And whether teaching him the best way to stuff his tights, or performing Hamlet's speech to the Players, he succeeds in teaching this nervous young actor the transformative power of the Bard. 

It's a witty play, with some genuine laughs and a truly New York state of mind--- it's no mistake that Andrew's old TV director shows up with his coarse Los Angeles views to try to save Andrew from this "theater thing." And while occasionally some of the characters seem a bit one-dimensional and over-the-top, tis can be forgiven as it is a play about the theater and being larger than life. And in truth, I am wired to appreciate a play that honestly believes there is a transformative power in the art of Shakespeare for any actor, or, indeed, any person. 

Paul Rudnick's first play was Poor Little Lambs about a female Yale student who wants to join the all-male Whiffenpoofs. I knew his play Jeffrey and the film adaptation, a piece that won him an Obie and a John Gassner Award, as well as comparisons to Oscar Wilde. He has also written some very witty movies like Addams Family Values, Sister Act and In & Out (which is really fun). 

I Hate Hamlet did well, but actually achieved some controversy when the famed actor Nicol Williamson (a famous Hamlet in his own right, and was said to be "touched by genius" by Samuel Beckett) in the role of Barrymore, began attacking his co-star Evan Handler too realistically and dangerously in an onstage sword fight. Handler left the production because of it. 

Full disclosure:  I hate seen a production of this play when I was in high school, but didn't remember anything about it. It must not have been memorable. But it made reading the script today fun.

30 PLAYS IN 30 DAYS: Play #23 "The Master Builder" by Henrik Ibsen

 

Henrik Ibsen, a master builder of plays

I have decided for the month of September to read 30 plays in 30 days. It is my belief that, if possible, a play should be read in one sitting to get a better inherent sense of the dramatic arc. Each day, I will write a short post here about the play of the day.

Play #23

The Master Builder by Henrik Ibsen

There is a reason that we call the great ones the great ones (hint: it's because they are great). Henrik Ibsen is the most frequently performed dramatist in the world after Shakespeare (his play A Doll's House was the most performed play in the world in 2006). The Norwegian playwright and theater director is rightfully considered one of the founders of modern theater as we know it. Although his early verse play Peer Gynt has some surreal elements to it, after that he largely was interested in writing only realistic prose. His influence is clear in writers like G.B. Shaw, Eugene O'Neill, and even James Joyce. he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1902, 1903, and 1904.

And yet, for whatever reason, I have not read all of his works. Before today, I had read his play Ghosts while a student at Boston University (a play in which we know a character has syphilis without the word every being said), Hedda Gabler (I don't know many people who have studied theater haven't read that one) and A Doll's House. 

I absolutely loved reading The Master Builder today. While it feels strange I that it took me this long, I also like to believe we read the things we read when we do for a reason, and it is possible that I might not have loved this play as much had I read it as a young man (or, younger man, right?) as an assignment. In many ways, Ibsen is the master builder, or at least the master craftsman, with so many playwrights like myself discovering that they are eager apprentices. 

The play was first published in 1892, and while it continues his quest for realism, it is also deeply infused with symbolism. Halvard Solness is the title character--- a middle-aged man, desperately afraid of the younger generation of builders, to the extent that he has kept one in his employ to clip his wings and keep him from rising, going so far as to encourage the young man's fiance to fall in love with him to use her to keep him in his employ. Solness lost his two young sons in what he thinks is the direct aftermath of a fire--- a fire he believes he may have had the power to will. In fact, Solness believes that he has this power in other ways, to bend people in a sense because of his will. That the "trolls" and "devils" help in this way. 

Along comes Hilda Wangel, who I have learned is a character who appeared in Ibsen's earlier play The Lady From the Sea as well. I hope to read that play, too, because I think Hilda is an amazingly drawn character. She talks of having seen the Master Builder when she was but a child of 12 or 13, when he climbed to the top of a church, to the highest tower, to adorn it with the traditional wreath upon completion of the project. She also tells Solness how he had promised to make her a princess one day and had even kissed her (gross). He told her in ten years he would come and take her away. And now she has come to him for the kingdom he promised her. 

The dynamic between Solness, afraid of his middle-age and relevancy and Hilda, the one aspect of the younger generation he is drawn to, is the heart of the play. And while sometimes Hilda's motivations seem a bit inconsistent--- does she want him to find happiness by being more grounded, or is she the temptress bird of prey who wants him to build the castles in the sky even if it means crashing down?--- it is often "quite thrilling" (as Hilda would say) to read their back and forth. 

There is much more I could write about this play, but I encourage you all to read it for yourselves if you haven't yet. You'll be glad you did...

One last note:  The play has very obvious biographical elements, as Ibsen had a brief affair with an 18 year-old woman who apparently delighted in stealing husbands (but he was in his early 60s, so maybe it was more his responsibility), of who he said gave him a "high, painful happiness". And while she didn't "steal" him, he said he stole her--- for his play. 

30 PLAYS IN 30 DAYS: Play #22 "The Taking of Miss Janie" by Ed Bullins

 

I have decided for the month of September to read 30 plays in 30 days. It is my belief that, if possible, a play should be read in one sitting to get a better inherent sense of the dramatic arc. Each day, I will write a short post here about the play of the day.

Play #22

The Taking of Miss Janie by Ed Bullins (pictured above)

I found this play in a collection I have of "Famous American Plays of the 1970s". It is not an easy play to read. The play begins with a white woman, Janie, in bed with her black friend named Monty. She is confronting him after he has just raped her. When this play opened in the 1970s, Bullins said described this scenario as a metaphor for race relations, but it is not an easy metaphor. The play won an Obie for Distinguished Playwriting, and also a New York Drama Critics Circle Award, but it is not a play I can imagine being produced easily in these times, though it was revived in 2006. In an interview with NPR (that you can find by clicking here) the director of the revival, Ms. Shauneille Perry, had this to say:

"It is a question of perception because I'd like to take note that the play is called “The Taking of Miss Janie.” And Mr. Bullins, himself, in various interviews, has said it was a friendly rape, quote/unquote. I'm not exactly sure what that means but I do know that in the play it's quite clear in the lines that Janie does not leave. She's not literally accosted and so on.

"In fact, she presents herself at the end. So, I think, Bullins was saying that Janie represents America, Monty represents black America and it was the black America in the taking of white America.I don't like to speak too much for the author but I think the word, rape, which I supposed is used for publicly purposes to get people in. But I think it's an overstatement of what actually happened and remembering that it's called “The Taking of Miss Janie.”

I don't know that I completely agree with this sentiment having read the play, nor do I think there is really such a thing as a "friendly rape".  And unfortunately, metaphor or not, I found the device problematic to say the least. Which is somewhat unfortunate, as there is still much to be taken in by this play. Bullins is a fearless writer--- he has won many, many awards--- and has a great deal to say by inverting stereotypes. Much of this play is a fascinating portrait and rendition of the turbulent 1960s, with many issues that are still so sadly prevalent today. 

My favorite line comes from Peggy, when talking, from the future, about the 1960s. She says:

"We all failed. Failed ourselves in that serious time known as the sixties. And by failing ourselves we failed in the test of the times. We had so much going on for us... so much potential..."

Ed Bullins has written many, many plays, won many awards and received many grants. He currently holds a distinguished Artist-In-Residence at Northeastern University, and was once the Minister of Culture for the Black Panthers. He is also considered one of the most prominent voices of the Black Arts Movement. 

30 PLAYS IN 30 DAYS: Play #21 "One Flea Spare" by Naomi Wallace

 

I have decided for the month of September to read 30 plays in 30 days. It is my belief that, if possible, a play should be read in one sitting to get a better inherent sense of the dramatic arc. Each day, I will write a short post here about the play of the day.

Play #21

One Flea Spare by Naomi Wallace

One Flea Spare  is set in a plague ravaged London in 1665, which is perhaps why it is perfect reading for today, for right now, this minute. I have read that Naomi Wallace was inspired by Daniel Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year and the acquittal of the four officers who beat Rodney King. According to Laura Michiel's essay Times of Contagion: The Social(ist) Politics of Plague in Naomi Wallace's "One Flea Spare", to Wallace, "these events became linked, because spatial barriers broke down, obliging the rich and poor to share a common space." And indeed, this play is very much about class, particularly in the time of a mass illness. Lower-class guard Kabe at one paint preaches, "you will see who it is that dies, their mouths open in want, the maggots moving inside their tongues making their tongues wag as though they were about to speak. But they will never speak again in this world. The hungry. The dirty. The abandoned. That's who dies. Not the fancy and the wealthy..."

One need only look today to see things have not changed a great deal in this regard. The effects of the current pandemic (as well as upcoming disasters such as climate change) do effect the poor by a very noticeable margin. And while this project isn't necessarily about making any kind of political statement, I think it is worth mentioning how art, even historical art, can be a powerful reflection of our present-day lives. 

The story centers on a wealthy couple who are about to flee London to try to outrun the plague, but are forced to stay and quarantine (literally forced--- boarded inside and guarded) when a sailor, Bunce, stumbles into their house thinking it is empty. A young girl of 12, Morse, has also become a stowaway in the house without them realizing. Because these uninvited guests were spotted by guards getting into the home, the wealthy couple, the Snelgraves, cannot leave. The four are stuck together. 

And Wallace is very good at showing how this quarantine-by-force breaks down the usual societal norms as time passes. And as one may notice in the quote above, Wallace does not shy away from the sad and the gruesome details of death, whether describing the pits where the dead are thrown, or those waiting to die and the "tokens" on their skin, black boils of pain. 

The meat of the play is how the characters interact, and Mr. Snelgrave, the master of the house, immediately keeps his "rightful" place and makes Bunce and Morse his servants. But structure cannot last forever. Not in quarantine. There is emotional and physical manipulation, violence, and odd desire. 

Which is not to say that the play is without humor and beauty. Naomi Wallace is also a poet, and her dialogue is lyrical and effortlessly descriptive. My favorite character is Morse, a challenging role no question, for any young actress. She was a servant girl who watched her mother get the "tokens" of the plague, and saw her master throw her mother in the cellar behind a locked door, and gave her no food or water. From then, she was on her own, until locking down as part of this very strange, intense group.

The title One Flea Spare comes from a poem, The Flea, by John Donne, and Wallace uses this and the Brecht quote "Corruption is our only hope" as epigraphs in the printed version of the play. The play originally premiered in London in October of 1995, then was part of the Humana Festival in 1996. It  opened in New York at the Public Theater in 1997, and won an Obie award for best play. The cast included Dianne Wiest  and a young Mischa Barton. The play also won a Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the 1996 Joseph Kesserling Prize, and the 1996 Fellowship of Southern Writers Drama Award.

This is my first introduction to the works of Naomi Wallace, and I anxiously look forward to learning more about her work. She is a MacArthur Fellow who has written many plays and several screenplays. I hope to learn more about her work soon. In the meantime, I highly recommend this play, though it may not be for the squeamish. 

30 PLAYS IN 30 DAYS: Play #20 "Tea and Sympathy" by Robert Anderson

 

I have decided for the month of September to read 30 plays in 30 days. It is my belief that, if possible, a play should be read in one sitting to get a better inherent sense of the dramatic arc. Each day, I will write a short post here about the play of the day.

Play #20

Tea and Sympathy by Robert Anderson

When reading Tea and Sympathy today, I couldn't help but feel this successful Broadway play from 1953 (it ran for over 700 performances) is certainly dated. But the fact that the play made me angry and sad also demonstrates what no one can deny--- it is still relevant. It shouldn't have to be--- one wishes it were a relic, something for people of today to look at and say, "Wow, can you believe people used to be like this?"  But it's not. It is still timely in its way. 

Tom goes to a an all-boys private school. He has a huge crush on Laura, a house mother at his dorm, who's marriage to Bill, a real "man's man" who wants to be headmaster someday, is not what she hoped it would be. Right at the beginning, bully Ralph has spread a rumor that Tom and a teacher named Mr. Harris were discovered swimming naked together--- it is not true. Mr. Harris, in his only scene, asks Tom if he told the Dean something had happened, but Tom is completely in the dark. Harris is going away. 

Laura, upset about these rumors that will affect Tom, and have gotten Harris fired without proof, confronts her husband, only to be told that men know when other men are off. And for the rest of the play, Tom is miserable, trying to prove that he is a man, even though his well-meaning roommate Al tells him he needs to cut his hair and "not walk so light". But even Al fails his friend, and, after pressure from his dad, intends to move out of the room. 

Bill, unprofessionally, spreads rumors about Tom, perhaps even jealous of the lad, because his wife has an interest in his well being. 

This play is tough: it is an early example of an American play dealing with sexual orientation, even though Tom is not gay, just sensitive and in love with Laura, who he can't be with. It talks a lot about when it means to be a "man" and criticizes what is known today as toxic masculinity. It criticizes notions that bullying is actually good for young men and helps them grow up. It criticizes the notion that men cannot be sensitive, cannot weep from emotion, cannot be different. These are all pretty impressive traits for a play in 1953. 

It was hard for me to read it at times, as I was called homophobic slurs constantly in high school, and had rumors spread about me being gay. Fortunately, I have always known that being called gay isn't an insult, even if it isn't true. There is nothing wrong with being gay. I would rather be mistaken for gay than be mistaken for being a misogynist, homophobic jerk. And even though the character Tom doesn't have that luxury, I do think the play is trying to send that message. 

The ending of course, which I won't spoil here, is perhaps problematic, but still, much better than I expected it to be. Laura is a great female character, very well rounded, and while not all of her motivations ring true, I imagine she was quite ahead of her time. 

As I wrote above, the play was a big success, directed by Elia Kazan and starring Deborah Kerr, Leif Erickson, Dick York and John Kerr (no relation). The play was then made into a movie in 1956, with Deborah, Leif and John reprising their stage roles. 

30 PLAYS IN 30 DAYS: Play #19 "Fences" by August Wilson

 

I have decided for the month of September to read 30 plays in 30 days. It is my belief that, if possible, a play should be read in one sitting to get a better inherent sense of the dramatic arc. Each day, I will write a short post here about the play of the day.

Play #19

Fences by August Wilson

The first play assigned for my Script Analysis class at Boston University was August Wilson's Joe Turner's Come and Gone, which still stands as one of my favorite contemporary plays, and a play that really opened my eyes. Growing up a little white boy in a very white town, I certainly had a great deal to learn. 

Over the years, many of Mr. Wilson's plays, but, for whatever reason, I had never read Fences until today. The play premiered at Yale Rep in 1985, and moved to Broadway in 1987 with nearly the same cast (including the likes of the great James Earl Jones, Courtney B. Vance, and Mary Alice) and still directed by Lloyd Richards, who writes the introduction for the edition of the play I own, and who was a truly wonderful theater artist (he was a guest professor at Bennington my senior year, but I didn't have a class with him, sadly). The play ran for over 500 performances, won the Pulitzer and a Tony for Best Play (Richards, Jones, and Alice all won Tonys, too). 

Fences is the sixth play in what is called Wilson's "Pittsburgh Cycle", and is set in the 1950s at the beginning of the play. The epigraph from my edition:

"When the sins of our fathers visit us
We do not have to play host.
We can banish them with forgiveness
As God, in his Largeness and Laws"
----August Wilson

And indeed, this play is very much about the sins of our fathers. It is also about forgiveness. These days, it is hard not to use the phrase "toxic masculinity," as, in all honesty, that seems to be protagonist Troy Maxson's tragic downfall. It is about what is inherited, and what we can rise above. Troy Maxon left his abusive father at the age of 14, spent time in jail, then did his best to shake away the sins of his father and start a life with Rose, who knows his faults but does her best to look deeper--- though she is too strong a character to be a made fool of. Troy has his family, and wants to take care of them the best he can, vehemently taking responsibility like he believes a man ought to. But there is that place inside of him, the same place where his stories come from, that is a kind of dark and bitterness. The man who could have played baseball, but felt it was denied him, so he denies his son a chance at any sports scholarship. The man who admits his wife is the best woman he could ever hope for, but who also indulges on the side, and feels little guilt for it.  Troy is a complex character who is often not very likeable--- mainly because we all know such contradictions honestly exist in every human.

Viola Davis, who starred with Denzel Washington in the film adaptation of the play, said of August Wilson's writing: "He captures our humor, our vulnerabilities, our tragedies, our trauma. And he humanizes us. And he allows us to talk."  Washington, for his part, has been very involved in bringing Wilson's plays to the screen, saying, "The greatest part of what's left of my career is making sure that August is taken care of."

Fences is  a quick read because Wilson is a great storyteller, and it is also lyrical, because he is a poet. There is no question we lost a giant when he passed in 2005 at the age of 60. But talk about a legacy he left behind. 

30 PLAYS IN 30 DAYS: Play #18 "The Good Doctor" by Neil Simon

 

I have decided for the month of September to read 30 plays in 30 days. It is my belief that, if possible, a play should be read in one sitting to get a better inherent sense of the dramatic arc. Each day, I will write a short post here about the play of the day.

Play #18

The Good Doctor by Neil Simon

Neil Simon hardly needs an introduction, as he is perhaps the most prolific Broadway play hitmaker of the last eighty years or so, starting with Come Blow Your Horn in 1961. Mr. Simon died in 2018 at the age of 91, over thirty plays, 20 screenplays, and dozens of television sketches and teleplays to his credit. I can also not stress enough how every student of playwriting, or any kind of writing in general, should read his memoir Rewrites, which follows his early years of learning how to write for the stage and all the work that goes into crafting a play. His second memoir, The Play Goes On, is also a valuable look at his life, though not as heavily focused on the craft of writing. Simon won a Pulitzer for his play Lost In Yonkers, and as well as a handful of Tonys, a Golden Globe, and many other awards along the way. 

Despite some of the critical honors and his unprecedented (and never duplicated) success as an American playwright, Simon was never taken as seriously as many of his contemporaries, as though his prolific nature and the fact he was writing comedies somehow meant he was pandering to audiences, or not a craftsman worth the admiration of say, a Pinter (Pinter actually loved The Odd Couple) or a Tennessee Williams. Underestimating Simon's importance and artistry is a mistake, I think. While he had some stinkers (what writer hasn't?), the truth is, he was solid at structure, creating human characters people related to, and, as his career progressed, someone who wasn't afraid of having real pain in his comedies. Famed actress and acting teacher Uta Hagen compared his comedies to the works of Anton Chekhov.

And that's the perfect segue to talk about The Good Doctor, Neil Simon's play that is a love letter to the master, Chekhov himself. The play features "The Writer" (played by the late, great Christopher Plummer) in the original Broadway production), a stand-in for Chekhov, who talks about his love for/compulsion for writing, as he introduces sketches based on Chekhov short stories, with scenes called "The Sneeze," "The Governess", "Surgery," "Too Late For Happiness," "The Seduction," "The Drowned Man," "The Audition," "A Defenseless Creature", and "The Arrangement."  It is a bright, breezy, fun read, with Simon clearly showing much love and care to the source material and its writer, a kind of "pupil appreciation for the master" sort of piece. I can imagine audiences having a great time, so long as they don't mind watching a collection of scenes as opposed to one longer piece. I daresay this would be fun to act in as well. 

While I enjoyed reading it, it is lighter fare, even for Simon. Each scene builds to a kind of punchline and little more, and while Simon is skillful in tying them together with the character of "The Writer," the play does feel a little disjointed.  

But it is good old fashioned entertainment, nonetheless.

The Good Doctor ran for 203 performances in 1973 at the Eugene O'Neill Theater, and was nominated for Four Tonys, with Frances Sternhagen winning one for Best Featured Actress in a play. 

30 PLAYS IN 30 DAYS: Play #17 "Jack and Jill: A Romance" by Jane Martin

 

I have decided for the month of September to read 30 plays in 30 days. It is my belief that, if possible, a play should be read in one sitting to get a better inherent sense of the dramatic arc. Each day, I will write a short post here about the play of the day.

Play #17:

Jack and Jill by Jane Martin

Jane Martin, often called the "mysterious Jane Martin" because she never wants to be seen in person, first came to attention with the collection of female monologues, Talking With. Her play, Keely and Du, which deals with the controversial subject of abortion, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and won an American Theatre Critics Association Award for Best New Play. The award was accepted on her behalf by playwright Jon Jory. Jon Jory also directs the original productions of  most of her plays. 

Because Jane Martin is (most likely) Jon Jory. 

I am not telling tales out of school here, though Jon Jory has never publicly admitted to being Jane Martin (though even his Wikipedia page mentions that he is rumored to being Jane Martin). My playwriting professor at Bennington, Gladden Schrock, who knows Mr. Jory and worked with him, flat out told us that Mr. Jory wrote as Jane Martin when he wanted to explore themes that dealt a great deal women and gender issues. 

Whether Jory is Jane Martin or not (he probably is), or whether maybe it has become like Andy Kaufman and Tony Clifton and others can take over, is not really a big deal. If a writer feels freer to explore certain things through a pseudonym, more power to them. I wouldn't take it away from anyone. 

And really, it has nothing much to do with my reading of Jack and Jill: A Romance, except, at times, one begins to wonder about certain tropes that Jill espouses, that sometimes feels like a male feminist writing from the point of view of what they perceive a feminist's mindset to be. Or maybe I just feel that way because I know the rumors about Jory being Martin, who knows? 

But I don't think so.

Jack and Jill: A Romance premiered at the Humana Festival directed by (surprise!) Jon Jory. It is a two-character play, with dressers who help dress the actors onstage. Jack and Jill meet at a library, begin a relationship, marry, divorce and meet again. It moves fast with accessible dialogue that is often witty and clever. Both Jack and Jill have monologues directly to the audience throughout, giving us more insight into their characters, but, really, it is the back and forth between characters that is most engaging (at least when Martin restrains from some of the preachiness). 

I don't think there is anything new about Jack and Jill: A Romance, and there wasn't anything new in 1996 when it premiered, not even the uncertain ending. The theme is about men and women connecting. The edges that overlaps and the areas that we don't understand about one another. 

But just because something is familiar territory, doesn't mean it isn't told in an interesting, entertaining manner. I imagine that this show could be quite the crowd pleaser with the right cast, and a director who knows how to keep the action moving between the many scene changes (this would die onstage with too much time between scenes... absolutely die). And to its credit, the piece attempts to explore relationships and issues between the genders, and for the most apart avoids certain stereotypes. 

I can't help but say that, in the final analysis, I found the play pretty much harmless. I could watch it and be fine and enjoy myself. 

But I can't imagine it sticking with me. 

30 PLAYS IN 30 DAYS: Play #16: "Morning, Noon, and Night" by Israel Horovitz, Terrence McNally, and Leonard Melfi

 

I have decided for the month of September to read 30 plays in 30 days. It is my belief that, if possible, a play should be read in one sitting to get a better inherent sense of the dramatic arc. Each day, I will write a short post here about the play of the day.

Play #16

Morning, Noon, and Night by Israel Horovitz ("Morning"), Terrence McNally ("Noon") and Leonard Melfi ("Night")

This trio of one-act plays that comprised a full evening by the Circle Square on Broadway must have seemed very strange to the audiences... for one, these do not particularly feel like Broadway shows of that era (1968), but rather the type of plays you might find Off-Broadway or Off-Off-Broadway. In fact, Clive Barnes in writing about the production (which he liked, and included in the "Best American Plays 1967-1973) called it an "invasion" of Off-Broadway onto Broadway. The three playwrights had certainly garnered some attention previously, Isarael Horovitz with The Indian Wants the Bronx which starred a young Al Pacino (who would collaborate with Mr. Horovitz again, including on an underrated movie I really like called Author! Author!.... side note: Horovitz is the father of Adam Horovitz, the Beastie Boy), Terrence McNally, the only one who had been on Broadway before, with And Things That Go Bump In The Night, and Melfi who had had plays produced all over the world. 

The show was not successful on Broadway, closing after 42 performances. Each play is for five actors, and the five actors were Charlotte Rae, Robert Klein, Sorrell Booke, John Heffernan, and Jane Marla Robbins. Despite the fact that the show was not a huge success, Charlotte Rae was nominated for a Tony. 

Clive Barnes wrote that the theme of each play was "Outrage"... I definitely agree in terms of Horovitz's Morning. The play is about a black family that has taken a miracle pill that turns them all white. While I understand the satire, and how Horovitz is intentionally playing with stereotypes, I cannot imagine this play being produced today without controversy. While one can appreciate the fact that the play, perhaps, is trying to give white people a mirror in which to see what the black experience in America may be like, it is tough to read stage directions saying things like "acting really black." Don't get me wrong--- I am a big one for satire, and I do think this play is not punching down, but taking shots at white culture liberal lip service... but it is still tough. I can't imagine watching a production with a group of white actors doing stereotypical voices as the play often suggests without feeling completely uncomfortable. 

On a side note:  Mr. Horovitz, before his death in 2020, was accused of sexual harassment by six different woman when they worked for him in the early 1990s (years after this play). He apologized, and his son, Adam, sided with the women, saying he believed them. 

Noon may be the most accessible of the three one acts. It is no secret that the late Mr. McNally (dying in 2020 of Covid-19, sadly) was very funny, and this short play is a sexual farce of sorts, with people answering a personal ad for a sexed-up afternoon with the mysterious "Dale", who never shows up. We have a gay young man, a stuffy uptight academic, a bored, married young looking to give steamy French lessons, and a married couple into Sado-Masochism. Hilarity and confusion abounds when they all realize Dale perhaps has brought them all here as a kind of prank. 

Night by Leonard Melfi is a strange (really a strange) night funeral scene. Though not explicitly stated, the attendees appear to be his wife, his mistress, his boyfriend and perhaps a friend. The deceased, a "cocky little bastard" named Cock Certain apparently wanted a night funeral. And he got one. A very strange one, that is ultimately interrupted by a man in a white suit burying a dog. 

So, yeah--- definitely an Off or Off-Off-Broadway invading Broadway, as Mr. Barnes suggested. And I think that's very cool. 

30 PLAYS IN 30 DAYS: Play #15 "Trudy Blue" by Marsha Norman

 

I have decided for the month of September to read 30 plays in 30 days. It is my belief that, if possible, a play should be read in one sitting to get a better inherent sense of the dramatic arc. Each day, I will write a short post here about the play of the day.

Play #15

Trudy Blue by Marsha Norman

Marsha Norman received the Pulitzer Prize in 1983 for her play 'Night Mother, and wrote the book and lyrics for a Broadway musical adaptation of The Secret Garden, which scored her Tony and Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical. I was mostly familiar with three things about her:  a writer's handbook in which she wrote an essay giving advice (including to read 4 hours a day and not let anyone ask you why you were just sitting around reading), her play Traveler in the Dark that a friend and fellow student directed at Bennington, and her play Loving Daniel Boone (which I read because the premiere production starred my playwriting professor Gladden Schrock in the title role). 

Trudy Blue originally grew from a short one act called Lunch With Ginger, which is still a scene in the play. The play centers around Ginger, a middle-aged writer who lives a great deal in her mind, struggling with a marriage that has gone stale and a life that doesn't feel all that happy to her. The play moves back and forth between what is real, what is imagined, and what is remembered, and has a tendency to honestly feel like it can operate outside of or general ideas of space and time. In this regard, Norman achieves a true kind of daydream-like quality that goes well with the character. Ginger is working on a new book, featuring a lead character named Trudy Blue, a stand-in for Ginger who knows exactly what she wants, knows exactly what she wants to say, and is unafraid of doing what will make her happy. 

Some may be bothered by the fact that Norman doesn't give us exact answers, but such things rarely bother me, so long as I have been interested enough in the journey. And while I do feel the play could be shaved a little bit, Ginger is an interesting character, and, as someone who daydreams quite a bit myself, I could relate to her. I think most writers could. I mean, who doesn't wish they could write a character who could solve all of their problems and be as brave and bold as we all secretly wish we could be?

Trudy Blue was first performed at the prestigious Humana Festival of New plays in 1995, but, from what I could find, is not the most popular of Norman's works. Regardless, it is a play that I think would be interesting to see on the stage. 

30 PLAYS IN 30 DAYS: Play #14 "R.U.R." by Karel Čapek

 

I have decided for the month of September to read 30 plays in 30 days. It is my belief that, if possible, a play should be read in one sitting to get a better inherent sense of the dramatic arc. Each day, I will write a short post here about the play of the day.

Play #14

R.U.R. by Karel Čapek

Before I begin, I have a confession to make:  today should not have been the first day I read this play. R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) was assigned as part of a class I took while a lad at Bennington, a class called "40 Plays" (the name of the class says it all--- we read forty plays) taught by my playwriting professor Gladden Schrock. This was the sole play I did not read for the class, and I missed the class when it was discussed. Why?  I can't remember specifically, but it was probably at a point during the semester when I was feeling overwhelmed by so many other projects, and this had to give. I am not someone who often missed required reading--- I can count only three reading assignments in my memory throughout my schooling--- because I actually really like to read and to learn. Still, I missed out on R.U.R. in that class (sorry, Gladden, if you are reading this), and, goody two-shoes that I am, always felt a small twinge of guilt whenever I looked at the script in the intervening years. 

But today I finally made good. 

Karel Čapek is sometimes called "the father of Czechoslovakian theater" and is best known in the English speaking world for R.U.R. and The World We Live In (also known as The Insect Play). He had a wide interest in various subjects, and once suggested that his ambition was to write about a hundred books and experiment with all different types of literature, though he fell short of this aim. Not for lack of talent or being prolific, however. 

R.U.R.is a satire of sorts, according to scholar Harry Shefter, a political, economic and social satire. Čapek had sincere concerns about technological advances leading to the dehumanization of our species, the major them of this play, and I can't help but think he might be horrified at our daily life today. He was well regarded in the literary community, and was nominated for the Nobel Prize seven times (though he never won). All this before he passed away at the age of 48, leaving an impressive legacy in such a relatively short life. 

R.U.R. was written in 1920 and first performed in 1921, and, yes, it largely introduced the term "robot" to the English language, and, in many ways, to science fiction as a whole. While the robots in the play may not seem like the mechanical/android types we have become accustomed to thinking of, they are all made to look somewhat similarly. These robots have heartbeats however, almost something between a cyborg, Frankenstein's monster, and Vicky from the absolutely bizarre 1980s sitcom Small Wonder. Again, we are looking at themes that have since become tropes in science fiction:  we have the factory producing robots run by Domain, a dominant fellow who finishes other people's sentences, who believes in wiping out labor by creating these robots. We have the scientists like Dr. Gall, who is working to find the balance to make these robots human enough to do the labor required, and to give them enough human traits, like feeling pain, so that they might protect themselves, minimizing damage and keeping things efficient and cost effective. 

A young woman named Helena arrives at the factory on behalf of something she calls the Humanity League (it is mentioned a few times but quickly dropped) on behalf of the rights of robots. This is all listened to with a kind of bemusement by the "smart men", like Domain and Dr. Gall, as well as engineer Fabry, psychologist Dr. Helman (who really doesn't seem to be much of a psychologist at all), Berman the businessman and Alquist, the only actual laborer it seems. They all condescend to Helena, and, oddly all fall in love with her, Act One ending with Domain giving her a few minutes to accept her marriage proposal twenty minutes after meeting her. Oddly, she does. 

The rest of the play deals with---- spoiler alert, though it is fairly obvious to anyone paying attention--- the aftermath of opening up the technological Pandora's box and not being able to close it again, leading to a Robot Revolt, and an epilogue with one surviving human watching a robot "Adam and Eve" learn to love, which, of course, further explores the theme of what it truly means to be human.  

I enjoyed reading this play, and was quite impressed by the satire, and impressed with  Čapek and his foresight and ideas. I am also always a fan when something like science fiction is presented on stage, as I feel it is a genre that isn't really explored much theatrically, and I think that's kind of a shame. 

I do wish writers from the 1920s who imagine the world of the future, could possibly imagine it with a woman who has agency for herself. Helena starts off strong, but in the first act alone winds up apologizing for her agency, calling herself a "silly girl" more than once. Later in the play, she is constantly being condescended and lied to, under the idea that it is for her own good and she shouldn't worry herself. Now, I have read some criticism of the play that this was intentional and part of the satire, and may very well be, with  Čapek playing on the stereotype of women being demure. And, in all fairness, Helena does in fact take initiative to convince Dr. Gall to try to give robots a soul, and she also takes matters into her own hands in a pivotal moment. I should also mention, the only other (human) female character, Emma the maid, is full of energy and doesn't take crap from anyone.

My only other major complaint is that some of the dialogue becomes very laughable in key moments, though that could very well be the effort of translation, and may play better on the stage than on the page. 

And with that, at long last, I can say that I have truly finished my "40 Plays" course load. Talk about a weight being lifted!

30 PLAYS IN 30 DAYS: Play #13 "Arcadia" by Tom Stoppard

 

I have decided for the month of September to read 30 plays in 30 days. It is my belief that, if possible, a play should be read in one sitting to get a better inherent sense of the dramatic arc. Each day, I will write a short post here about the play of the day.

Play #13

Arcadia by Tom Stoppard

Tom Stoppard is a genius. 

Now that I have your attention...

I am not saying anything new by calling Mr. Stoppard a genius, and I should tell you, I think the word "genius" is incredibly overused. But it is true in this instance. I have been in awe of Mr. Stoppard since reading Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead my junior year of high school, right after reading Hamlet (thank you Mrs. Allen). 

My first year of college, I was a student of Boston University's BFA acting program in their school for the arts, which had a relationship with the Huntington Theatre. I went to see Arcadia as a student and was blown away by the production (the following day, members of the cast came to speak to my acting class--- including a 19 year-old young woman, which made us all a little jealous and wonder what we were doing in school while she was in this amazing production). I remember at the time just marveling at how the play was like a symphony in the way it was so brilliantly orchestrated, taking elements from different times and blending them so beautifully on stage. So precise, so wonderful. 

I never read the script until today, but always praised the play because of my fond memories of the production. Reading the script today is like reading the sheet music of that great symphony, and being just as in awe. 

Arcadia takes place in the same room, in 1808 and the present day. The play deals with research, truth, evidence, history, mathematics, time, space, physics... 

Now, who can take all of this stuff, which sounds so heady on the page, and make an engrossing, lovely, poignant, entertaining play out of it?

The same guy who can take two minor characters from Hamlet and build a tragicomic piece on existentialism and identity. 

Tom Stoppard, that's who. 

A genius. 

I would go into greater detail, but that might rob one of seeking out a production or reading the script themselves, which is something I have no interest in doing. I mean, who can really describe a symphony?

30 PLAYS IN 30 DAYS: Play #12 "Bosoms And Neglect" by John Guare

 

I have decided for the month of September to read 30 plays in 30 days. It is my belief that, if possible, a play should be read in one sitting to get a better inherent sense of the dramatic arc. Each day, I will write a short post here about the play of the day.

Play #12

Bosoms and Neglect by John Guare

John Guare is probably best known for his early success The House of Blue Leaves in 1971 and his last real success, Six Degrees of Separation in 1990 (made into a movie that provided Will Smith his first starring role in a feature, though he refused to kiss a man onscreen as the script demanded). The play of Mr. Guare's I have been most familiar with is Landscape of the Body because I was assigned a scene from it for an acting class while at Bennington. Like Landscape, Bosoms and Neglect is an oddly structured dark comedy with interesting tonal shifts from painful subjects to odd humor to moments of genuine pathos. The biggest issue I sometimes had with the play is that the shifts don't always feel completely earned on the page, and that the stories here sometimes felt like two separate one acts smooshed together. Having said this, I am fan of Mr. Guare's writing and dialogue, and his bold choices, whether they always work or not. His interest, it seems to me, is more in the visceral responses of his audience and readers. 

The title Bosoms and Neglect come from the fact that Scooper (real name James), a man in his forties, discovers in an unsettling darkly comic prologue that his mother Henny, who is blind and in her eighties, has been having a secret pain for over two years and hasn't told him. She reveals her breasts to him, and one is nearly eaten away by cancer. The rest of the act, Scooper is talking with a woman named Deidre at her apartment while his mother is in surgery. This the the first time they have spoken, but know each other from the waiting room of the psychiatrist that they share--- Scooper sees him three days a week, Deidre five. At first they bond over books, and their love of their mutual doctor, but the act ends in a rather shocking, physical manner, revealing that these two are perhaps not getting their money's worth from their therapy. Act two picks up after Henny's successful surgery, where she and Scooper (who is now also a patient at the hospital after the end of Act One), have it out in a sense, where the theme of neglect comes shining through bright and strong. Deidre appears again, but the play ends in a long, poignant monologue from Henny, who, without her knowledge, has been left alone in her hospital room, though she thinks she has been talking to her son. 

The play originated at the Goodman Theater in Chicago in 1979 and received mainly positive reviews before it moved to Broadway and was torn apart by critics and closed after only four performances. The cast included Kate Reid, Paul Rudd (not the Paul Rudd we all know and love today-- he may be well preserved, but come on), and Marian Mercer. A slightly revised version of the play was presented in 1986, and then another revival Off-Broadway at the Signature Theater Company in 1998, which received much better reviews and was even nominated for Drama Desk Award for Best Revival. In fact, many playwrights consider this to be one of Guare's best works. The incredible Paula Vogel said of the play that it was, "one of the more influential and devastating experiences in her years of going to the theatre," in an interview with Playbill online in 1997.

And Paula Vogel's opinion is not one to take lightly.