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.