Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams (1955)

Summary:  Adult brothers Brick and Gooper, accompanied by their wives and (in Gooper's case) children, are visiting their parents at the family plantation situated on 28,000 acres in Mississippi.  Big Daddy, their father, has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and the brothers must find a way to relay the bad news to both of their parents, while each jockeying for a larger portion of the family inheritance (over ten million dollars in liquid assets alone).

While the circumstances create a tense situation; the primary tension of the play surrounds Brick's sexuality. Brick has been married to Maggie for years, though the two have never produced a child.  Maggie (the highly sexualized cat on a hot tin roof) and Big Daddy both accost Brick about his sexuality and the drinking problem that began when his best "friend" Skipper died.  

Early in the play, Maggie tells Brick, "Later tonight I'm going to tell you I love you an' maybe by that time you'll be drunk enough to believe me" (38).  In the final scene of the play, Maggie announces to the family that she is pregnant with Brick's child, thus making "Big Daddy's dream come true" and securing their larger portion of the family fortune (168).  In the final moments of the play, the family leaves the room and Maggie tells Brick that she has locked up the liquor and won't give it back until he has sex with her.  She states, "Tonight we're going to make the lie true, and when that's done, I'll bring the liquor back here and we'll get drunk together, here, tonight, in this place that death has come into" (173).  She adds that she loves him, and the play concludes with Brick's final statement, "Wouldn't it be funny if that was true?" (173).  

Thoughts:  For months, I've been thinking that I had read this play before and simply didn't remember it, but that is not the case.  This was definitely my first read of this play and I greatly enjoyed it.

Seven years after winning his first Pulitzer for A Streetcar Named Desire, this play involves many of the same subject areas (dysfunctional family, tension with in-laws, gay issues, alcohol, fighting).  Earlier in the project, I wrote about being in awe of Edward Albee's fight scenes...and this is an area where Tennessee Williams also excels, particularly within the confines of a very tense family situation.  While Maggie is constantly complaining about the children being vaguely annoying, they have little effect on the play with one exception.  When she is attempting to scold one of her nieces, the child (named Dixie) says to her, "You're jealous!  You're just jealous because you can't have babies!"  (62).  Williams' stage direction before Dixie's line reads, "With a precocious instinct for the cruelest thing."  Even the children at the periphery of this family know how to throw trump cards in a fight.

While Williams' plays are favorites of actors, he also uses stage directions to make the texts highly readable.  Instead of using stage directions simply for the most basic of blocking and emotional cues, he includes a great deal of information about his characters in these italicized pieces of text.  Moments after Big Daddy has suggested that Brick's relationship with Skipper was, "not, well, exactly normal", the stage directions note: 

"Brick's detachment is at last broken through.  His heart is accelerated; his forehead sweat-beaded, his breath becomes more rapid and his voice hoarse.  The thing they're discussing, timidly and painfully on the side of Big Daddy, fiercely, violently on Brick's side, is the inadmissible thing that Skipper died to disavow between them.  The fact that if it existed it had to be disavowed to "keep face" in the world they lived in, may be at the heart of the "mendacity" that Brick drinks to kill his disgust with.  It may be the root of his collapse.  Or maybe it is only a single manifestation of it, not even the most important.  The bird that I hope to catch in the net of this play is not the solution of one man's psychological problem.  I'm trying to catch the true quality of existence in a group of people, that cloudy, flickering, evanescent--fiercely charged!--interplay of live human beings in the thundercloud of a common crisis.  Some mystery should be left in the revelation of character in a play, just as a great deal of mystery is always left in the revelation of character in life, even in one's own character to himself.  This does not absolve the playwright of his duty to observe and probe as clearly and deeply as he legitimately can:  but it should steer him away from "pat" conclusions, facile definitions which make a play just a play, not a snare for the truth of human experience.  

[The following scene should be played with great concentration, with most of the power leashed but palpable in what is left unspoken.]" Act 2, 116-117). 

Proof by David Auburn (2001)

Summary:  After the death of her mathematician father, Catherine is left to negotiate a relationship with her sister Claire (who appears to completely have her life together) and Hal, a former doctoral student once advised by her father.  Allusions are made to her father's mental illness which 25 year-old Catherine believes she has inherited.  Ultimately, the Hal discovers a notebook containing a revelatory mathematics proof which would prove Robert's genius.  However, Catherine claims that she wrote the proof.  Claire and Hal are forced to question Catherine's potential genius and the lasting legacy of troubled Robert.

Thoughts:  One of the reasons that I find myself attracted to Edward Albee's plays is the way he writes fighting--sometimes ruthless and often nonsensical and emotional rather than logical.  Now on my third read of Proof, I find myself attracted to Auburn's dialogue for the same reason.

We know that Robert was a genius who went "crazy" and that Catherine feels the madness might have been passed down to her--but the type of mental illness or any sort of specific diagnosis is never mentioned.  Somewhat hauntingly, the play is dedicated "In memory of Benjamin Auburn (1972-2000)."

There are two major "wowza!" moments in this play.  One comes in the middle of Scene One after an eight-page conversation between Catherine and her father as he states mid-scene, "Because I'm also dead.  (Beat.)  Aren't I?"  She responds, "You died a week ago."  From this moment on , Auburn's structure does not follow linear chronology.  This deliberate stylistic choice allows him flexibility and new perspective in exploring yet another family drama (much like style is at the forefront of How I Learned to Drive).  Additionally, although Robert is dead, the non-chronological structure allows us to see him as "madness" begins to set in and then overtake.  The second wowza moment closes Act One as Catherine states, "I didn't find it.  I wrote it.  (Curtain.)"  While "wowza!" moments are highly theatrical and inspire whispers at intermission, Auburn also succeeds at making them shocking in print...certainly not an easy feat.

Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhry (1988)

Summary:  After an unfortunate accident involving the neighbor's garage, Boolie Werthan decides to hire a black chauffeur for his mother Daisy.  For the next twenty-five years, she resists Hoke's help while they both gradually develop a deep mutual affection toward one another.

Thoughts:  I flew through this play (much like my reading experience of Doubt, actually).  The language of this play is precise:  neither Daisy not Hoke wastes their time with superfluous anything--especially words.  As such, each of Uhry's lines reveals something about his characters.

In his Introduction, Uhry explains that these are real people--amalgamations of individuals he encountered over the course of his childhood in Atlanta.  Anyone who has grown up in the South has probably known their own Miss Daisy.  Maybe I loved this play because it reminded me of my own grandmother; but I also found myself moved by the simplicity of the story and detail of the characters lives as they stay together for twenty-five years. 

I have written before about film adaptions that have made it hard for me to get the voices of the film actors (Jimmy Stewart in Harvey) out of my head.  This was not one of them.  While I remember the cinematic performances offered by Morgan Freeman and Jessica Tandy (Academy Award, 1989), Uhry's play is as remarkable on paper as it is in performance.

I recently read a New York Times review of the 2010 Broadway revival starring Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones that noted the challenge of staging this play because it is certainly not a visual piece.  The article explained that the new production features slides in the background depicting the Civil Rights struggle and other events over the course of the twenty-five year setting (1948-1973).  After reading the play, I wonder why why why.  Uhry's work is strong enough to be produced with very little visual element...especially with actors like Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones.

Photo credit:  Carol Rosegg

"I am in the process of writing the screenplay.  I have won the Pulitzer Prize.  Even as I write these words they seem unbelievable to me.  When I wonder how all this happened (which I do a lot!) I can come up with only one answer.  I wrote what I knew to be the truth and people recognized it as such."

-Alfred Uhry, Introduction

Of Thee I Sing by George Kaufman, Morrie Ryskind, Ira Gershwin (1932)

Summary:  Political handlers have decided that the best platform for presidential hopeful Mr. Wintergreen to run on is love.  After all, Americans can't resist a good love story.  They create a pageant, where the lucky winner will follow Wintergreen to the White House and assume the position of First Lady.  Meanwhile, Wintergreen falls in love with Mary (a campaign worker who makes dynamite corn muffins).  Wintergreen wins the election, the country falls in love with Mary and pageant winner Diana returns to stir up some conflict.

Thoughts:  Antics for days!  This is the first musical to win the Pulitzer Prize, and one of the only comedies to win the award in the 20s or 30s (the 1937 winner was also a comedy and also written by Kaufman).  Much like State of the Union (1946), this play caters to America's fascination with the inner workings of politics.  An overall message of "those people in Washington don't know what they're doing any better than you do."

The humor in this play remains relatively intact.  Though sexist statements about women date the play, they also give it a sort of antique charm.  Like State of the Union and You Can't Take It With You, the humor in this play is smart an exists on numerous levels (dialogue, puns, zany plot antics).  The play contains a running gag about a man named Mr. Throttlebottom.  No one can ever remember his name, why he is there or what he does.  Throttlebottom himself doesn't seem to understand the duties of Vice President (which he is!) because no one can explain them to him.

Our Town by Thornton Wilder (1938)

Summary:  A Stage Manager leads audiences through the fictional town of Grover's Corners in three acts:  Daily Life, Love and Marriage, Death and Eternity.  The Stage Manager remains central to the narrative as we watch other characters age, marry and eventually die.  A primary appeal of the play is that this town could be any town--just like yours or mine, with people reminiscent of our own neighbors.

Thoughts:  It seems crazy to me that I made it out of high school without reading this play, but I did.  Though this is a predecessor to Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth (1943 Pulitzer Prize), the playwright's ability to handle an extremely broad scope of material through individual (perhaps archetypal?) characters is astounding.  People continue to produce Our Town because it is essentially timeless.  Though the actions of the family sometimes date the play (chopping wood for mother, going on dates to get ice cream sodas), their feelings about the subjects listed in the three acts are inherently relatable, if not universal.

In February of 2009, director David Cromer mounted a new production of Our Town at the Barrow Street Theatre in New York.  The production raked in critical acclaim, with Cromer starring as the Stage Manager.  During the two and a half year run, several actors have played the Stage Manager including:  David Cromer, Stephen Kunken, Michael Shannon, Michael McKean and Helen Hunt.  The show closed on September 12, 2010 with Cromer reprising his role as the Stage Manager for the final performance days before it was announced that he was the recipient of a 2010 MacArthur Genius Grant.

I also had the privilege of seeing this production (on the same day as Fences, actually).  Michael Shannon's performance was absolutely unbelievable; but the other actors were sometimes distractingly bad, other times simply not remarkable.  The most stunning moment I have ever seen in theatre or film happened in the middle of the third act and I left the theatre knowing that it was something that I would never forget.

"...That is the sole extraordinary touch in a production that is in most ways ordinary, and I think purposely and profitably so. Wilder sought to make sacraments of simple things. In “Our Town” he cautioned us to recognize that life is both precious and ordinary, and that these two fundamental truths are intimately connected."

-Charles Isherwood:  The New York Times, February 27, 2009.  

http://theater.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/theater/reviews/27town.html

You Can't Take it With You by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman (1937)

Summary:  The Vanderhof family is not like other families of 1937.  Or of any decade, really.  From the opening scene, we see that visual eccentricities abound:  mother is writing plays while offering treats from a skull-shaped candy dish, father is in the basement creating special fireworks for the fourth of July.  Their own personal oddities have never proven a problem before, but Alice (the family's youngest daughter) is soon-to-be engaged to Tony Kirby--a young man from a society upbringing.  Alice attempts to ready her family for a dinner party involving Tony's relatives...but all goes to hell when the Kirby family arrives for dinner a day early.

Thoughts:  The family in this play reminded me of Augusten Burrough's makeshift relatives in Running with Scissors.  While their lifestyle works for them, it isn't the most presentable or understandable to outsiders.  Though the family is the meat of this production, there are also some rich "color" characters including Gay Wellington ("an actress, a nymphomaniac and a terrible souse"), Kolenkov (a very large, very male Russian ballet teacher) and The Grand Duchess (a Russian princess...of course).

The humor in this play has remained almost entirely intact, even after 73 years.

If ever I were to be given the opportunity to do a large-scale production with a diverse group of friends, this would be it.  The antics in this play generate madcap humor; but there is also a remarkable amount of heart involved in the struggle to accept the family you were born into.

J.B.: A Play in Verse by Archibald MacLeish (1959)

Summary:  Mr. Zuss and Mr. Nickles are omnipresent narrators who guide us through the story of J.B. (a modern-day Job) and his family.   Occasionally, they are joined by "Distant Voice", who we can surmise is God.  After individually revealing each of J.B.'s trials, they return to the scene to swap some theological banter and guide us into the next depiction of things getting progressively worse for the wounded protagonist.

Thoughts:  Ashamedly, I groaned a little when I discovered that this was a 153 page "play in verse."  Wrong!  So wrong!  Structurally, this play is one of the most sound and interesting I have encountered in the project.  With Zuss and Nickles as guides, MacLeish facilitates the telling of a Biblical story in a very human and potentially timeless way.  As things go from wonderful to terrible for J.B. and his wife, their roles and thoughts about God are essentially reversed. 

We know from the outset that, after J.B. has endured all the trails that God has in store for him, things will get better; but MacLeish masterfully makes each new heartbreak a deeper descent into darkness. 

I think my fourth grade brain added the word "rhyming" to the subtitle "a play in verse."  While it did not rhyme, the language of this play was stunning, and for me, reminiscent of the often theological patriotism of Norman Corwin.  For those keeping score at home, MacLeish holds two additional Pulitzer Prizes (for Poetry), an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and a Presidential Medal of Freedom.  Because he wasn't busy enough, he also served as the first Librarian of Congress...and came up with the idea that the United States should have a poet laureate.

I can already say that when I finish this project, one of the most substantial riches I will have gained is the discovery of Archibald MacLeish.

Anna in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz (2003)

Summary: A Cuban family owns a cigar factory in Tampa, where they employ lectors to read from the classics (notably Anna Karenina) while cigars are hand-rolled. Tension exists between those who are loyal to the old way of doing things and those who believe the company could be more productive with the use of machines and the dismissal of lectors. The “out with the old, in with the new” tension also carries over to individual marriages in the play—especially between Conchita and Palomo, who have decided that they may not be in love anymore. Consequently, Conchita begins having an affair with Juan Julian, the newest lector.

Thoughts: I’ve had this play on my shelf since it was published and have never read it. Moreover, I’ve actively avoided reading it for this project and I really have no idea why. Well, wait. In 2003, a person whose literary opinion I didn’t hold in high esteem wouldn’t stop talking about it the summer after it was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. How dumb. Seven years after my stubbornness, I found Cruz’s work moving and his use of language was extremely impressive.

The play had tough competition for the Prize in 2003: fellow nominees were Take Me Out and The Goat; plays that deal with homosexuality and bestiality, respectively. This play is an interesting examination of the Cuban immigrant experience and the combined pressure to assimilate and need to preserve family and culture.  While the play is set in 1929, Cruz's handling of fairly universal themes makes the play a quick and highly relevant read.  Additionally, Cruz uses both large chunks of Tolstoy’s work as lines for the lector to read, and also short lines of Tolstoy's work seamlessly woven into dialogue. While the classic work undoubtedly serves its purpose in the script, some of the choices are perhaps too deliberately heavy handed (Anna Karenina is in a forbidden relationship, and so is the lector. And this is repeated again and again).

Why Marry? by Jesse Lynch Williams (1918)

Summary:  Couples in a family are each having separate issues surrounding the subject of marriage.

Main plot:  Ernest and Helen:   two scientists who agree that they love each other; and also agree that they do not want to marry.

Sub-plots:  Rex and Jean:  probably don’t really love each other but have decided that it is time to marry.

John and Lucy:  Established married couple of the family.  All of the action of the play takes place at their home.  Amidst all the marriage craziness, Lucy eventually announces that she wants a divorce because she’s never really loved John in the first place.  John dismisses this as female hysteria.

Uncle Everett and unseen wife Julia:   Everett provides comic relief throughout the play.  He and his own wife are “secretly” attempting a trial separation, but she keeps sending cute telegrams from Reno, eventually revealing that they both miss each other and she’s on her way home.

Thoughts:  This play was originally published under the title And So They Were Married, but perhaps in an attempt to not give away the ending…it was changed and The Pulitzer committee recognizes it under the title Why Marry?  I have to say that I wasn’t particularly thrilled when I received this play through Inter-library loan and noticed that the first recipient of the Pulitzer is 242 pages long; but I was actually delightfully surprised.

The text is shockingly progressive, especially for 1918.  Helen is a brilliant, working scientist whose family believes that it is time for her to get married.  She and Ernest profess their love to each other and both agree that, “those who love each other truly don’t need anything to bring them together.  The difficulty is to keep apart” (148).  Clearly, Helen’s family thinks that this idea is ludicrous.

The play contains major commentary surrounding not only the subject of family and marriage; but also the role of both the church and state in marriage and civil unions and gender bias in academia.  Though these are all weighty subjects, the comedic elements of the play are both whimsical and intelligent.  Additionally, many of William’s lines are pointedly succinct.  He clearly uses word economy to his advantage, creating snippets of dialogue that can be quoted and remembered. 

I think a fascinating paper would be a queer reading of this play, especially because many of Helen and Ernest’s thoughts about marriage are reminiscent of rhetoric currently being used on both sides of the gay marriage/civil union argument.

The Skin of Our Teeth by Thornton Wilder (1943)

Summary:  This play tracks the life of George Antrobus and his wife Maggie through three major periods: an ice age, the Roaring Twenties/a major flood and after a seven year war reminiscent of the Civil War.  The time periods are not clearly specified but definitely have allusions to both Biblical and historical times.   George and Maggie are the quintessential archetypes….and their relationship (which has apparently gone on for about 5,000 years) is a relatively “normal” set of husband/wife interactions.

Thoughts:  Well.  I just loved this play.  Though it was written in 1942, much of the humor has remained intact and I found myself thinking, “A comedy!  Thank God!” as it was my first since beginning the Project.  Because he deals with archetypes and has forty actors, Wilder allows himself the room to make sweeping pronouncements about humanity and the current state of affairs without falling into melodrama or forced sentimentality. 

By the end of the play, we’ve followed George and Maggie through some fairly major trials and tribulations, but they remain together dealing with their own family comedy and drama as the world around them has changed drastically.  At the end of the third act, Wilder borrows language from philosophers as he writes about the history of the world and it’s inhabitants in a voice reminiscent of some of Norman Corwin’s best work.