The Young Man from Atlanta by Horton Foote (1995)

Summary:  Following the apparent suicide of their adult son Bill, upper middle class Houstonians Will and Lily Dale build their expensive dream home.  Will is fired from a company where he has worked for 38 years shortly after they move in.  When he asks his wife for some of their savings, she sheepishly tells him that she has given much of it to their son's "friend" from Atlanta.  After Lily Dale reveals that she has been speaking to Will's friend and sending him thousands of dollars, Will is incensed.  When the friend unexpectedly shows up, Will refuses to see him on the grounds that, "There are things I'd have to ask him and I don't want the answers" (109).

Thoughts:  The word "gay" never appears in this play, but all talk of Bill's friend is fraught with tension.  In her final monologue on the last page of the play, Lily Dale says, "He said Bill insisted on giving him the money, for buying nice things.  He said he was like a father to him....He said, too, that he wished he could have gone down in the water that day with Bill.  That's how much he loved him and missed him" (110).  Her husband assures her that everything will be "all right" soon and the play ends.

This play is short and confined to familial interactions.  Family secrets surrounding money, suicide and homosexuality are omnipresent, but rarely verbalized.  Foote's characters suggest that these are the three topics that should, under no circumstances, be discussed outside of the stifling confines of family...and sometimes not even inside the confines.

The Kentucky Cycle by Robert Schenkkan (1992)

Summary:  Nine short plays are set on the same acreage in Kentucky, spanning from 1775-1975.  The plays chronicle the lives of three families, which are intertwined through rivalry, slavery and marriage.

• Masters of the Trade-1775-Michael Rowen, a former indentured servant from Ireland, makes deals with the Cherokee exchanging ammunition (the Cherokee have recently acquired firearms, but no ammunition) for pelts and land.  This land is the setting for all nine plays in the Cycle.
• The Courtship of Morning Star-1776-Rowen has captured a Cherokee girl named Morning Star to be his wife.  He cuts her Achilles tendon so that she can never run away.  She has a baby, Michael is pleased to have a son. 
• The Homecoming-1792-Michael Rowen returns from a trip to the city with a slave named Sallie, who he plans to breed (with himself).  Enraged at the idea that he might also have a second family in the city, his son Patrick Rowen (16) shoots and kills him.  Hearing the gunshot, neighbor Joe Talbert comes over, reveals that he has been having an affair with Star (Patrick's mother).  Patrick kills him, sends his mother away and states his plans to marry Joe's daughter. 
• Ties That Bind-1819-A judge comes to Patrick's land and informs him that he is deeply indebted to a man named Patrick, who now owns his bank loans.  As they attempt to reconcile this debt, Patrick ends up selling everything that he has ever owned--including slave Sally and her son Jessie (who is actually Patrick's brother).  In the final moments of the play, it is revealed that Jeremiah is Jeremiah Talbert-son of murdered Joe and brother of Rebecca, Patrick's wife.  As part of the deal, Patrick's sons are "employed" to work for Talbert...a vengeful man who is actually their uncle. 
• God's Great Supper-1861-Richard Talbert (39), son of Jeremiah visits the rundown Rowen house and informs Jed Rowen (28) that they will be riding into Bowling Green the next day to join the Confederate Army.  Jed is needed because he knows the land better than anyone.  Jed wisely makes a deal with Jeremiah that his family's land will be taken care of while he is away (by slaves) and he will be paid for his time and allowed to work off some of his family's debt.  Richard agrees.  Jed has actually agreed to go on this trip because he has planned to kill Richard (and his entire family supports this idea).  After Richard is dead, they will only have to kill the remaining women and children of the Talbert house and then they will have their land back and no debts.  Lots of killing happens.
• Tall Tales-1885-Jed Rowen, now 52, is visited by a "storyteller" who eventually asks him if he'd be willing to sell the mineral rights to his land for $1 an acre.  After being told that someone will remove the rocks from his soil, Jed enthusiastically agrees.  His daughter (Mary Anne) narrates the story as old and young versions of herself and eventually talks about the destruction caused when the coal companies came in. 
• Fire in the Hole-1920-Mary Anne now has a ten year old son (Joshua Rowen) who is sick, probably with typhoid fever.  They have lost their house and are now living in the awful conditions of a coal camp.  A boarder named Abe (a secret union organizer) comes to stay at their home; gradually telling her about unions and Mother Jones.  Abe eventually persuades Mary Anne and her husband Tommy to start a coal union.  Abe and Tommy are eventually killed (for being an organizer and a snitch, respectively) but Mary Anne has started the first coal union. 
• Which Side Are You On-1954-Things are not good for the Union.  Joshua (44) is now the president of United Mine Workers District 16 and has been skirting safety regulations for months.  His son is recently back from Korea and takes a job as a "yes man" to his father.  As Joshua struggles with the idea of telling the Union members that there will be more cutbacks, there is an accident in the mine (because he has been ignoring safety issues to save some money).  His son Scotty and 12 others are killed because of his negligence.
• The War on Poverty-1975-Three sixty-five year old men (a Rowen, a Talbert and a Biggs--descendant of slave Sally) are walking around the land, attempting to figure out how much it is now worth.  "Mountaintop Removal Mining" has come into existence and the three men speak about it in tones mixed with awe and fear.  In casual conversation, a reference is made to grave-robbing that is now apparently popular in the mountains of Kentucky, involving the search for Native American artifacts.  As the men amble around the land, they see a partially exhumed grave and lift a buckskin pouch out of it--a pouch that contains the well-preserved remains of a baby.  This is actually the second child of Morning Star.  When Michael Rowen saw that this child was not a boy, he took it out into the woods and buried it alive. 

Thoughts:  I checked this book out of the library during the first two weeks of the project and have complained about reading it since.  9 plays?!  332 pages?!  I saved it for a long plane ride and then for the day after Thanksgiving and when both of those days came and went without me opening the cover, I knew I needed to commit to reading it in one sitting...which is what I did between the hours of 11 PM and 4 AM this morning.

To my surprise, reading this play was not difficult.  Because there are nine short plays, a sustained attention span is not necessary.  Though the same characters appear in multiple plays, Schenkkan's character description page preceding each play specifically states how old these characters are in the play to follow.  Schenkkan's decision to bind the plays chronologically is also very helpful.  Though names repeat (a number of the boys are named after their fathers/ancestors), this was never confusing for me because Schenkkan is brief and direct about who these people are.

The Cycle is obviously very broad, and certain plays are more enjoyable to read than others--perhaps because some of the main characters are quite one-dimensional and therefore are easy to categorize as "good guys" and "bad guys."  Schenkkan's portrayal of the women in these plays is very interesting.  Though they are never the main characters of his stories, they are almost unequivocally good people--trying to make the right choices even when their husbands are doing evil things based on greed.

Importantly, in the first play, when Michael asks the Cherokee for land, the Cherokee attempts to dissuade him from taking land on the mountain.  He repeatedly issues warnings to the effect of, "You will find this a dark and bloody land" and "you live here, it is not the Cherokee you need fear" (23).  Though he explains that the land is cursed (and the manifestations of this curse are seen in the eight plays that follow), the curse is never mentioned again.

Rent by Jonathan Larson (1996)

Summary:  The lives of seven young Bohemian friends in New York intersect over the course of a year as they attempt to find (or keep) love in a world where many of their friends are dying of AIDS.  None of the friends seem to have stable jobs and all are just trying to find some way to pay the rent.  The quasi-narrator of the story is Mark, a documentary filmmaker who is rarely seen without his camera.  Accordingly, Mark concludes the play by showing footage that he has gathered over the course of a year. 

Thoughts:  Another play that is difficult to summarize because so much of it is dependent on Larson’s depiction of individual characters and their relationships to each other.  Again, my reading of this play was enhanced by the fact that I am familiar (by familiar I mean I know every word) with the score…but, unlike Next to Normal and A Chorus Line, some of the songs in this text are memorable without their accompanying music ("Seasons of Love," for example, reads like a list-poem). 

Victoria Hoffman’s Introduction to the text reveals some of the now well-known stories about Jonathan Larson, namely that he died after the final dress rehearsal of Rent from a brain aneurysm that two emergency room physicians failed to diagnose.  Interestingly, Hoffman (Larson’s best friend) also writes that he was directed towards a career in composition after Stephen Sondheim wrote to him, “I know a lot fewer starving composers than I do actors” (vii).  Indeed, Sondheim is lyrically thanked in the text and his influence is evident in Larson’s structure and heavily rhyming lyrics. 

Rent is certainly a different kind of musical…and one that paved the way for the critical and popular success of things like Next to Normal (Anthony Rapp, a lead in Rent wrote the introduction to Next to Normal).  While musicals like 42^nd Street, My Fair Lady and South Pacific may have been an entry-point into the world of musical theatre for my parents' generation, Rent was my entry-point.  Though the thought of how many times I listened to the orange discs makes me cringe now, the subject matter and artistic choices were unlike anything else that my ninth grade self had experienced.

Lost in Yonkers by Neil Simon (1991)

Summary:  When their father leaves in search of out-of-state work (1942), teenagers Jay and Arty are forced into a ten-month stay with their distant grandmother, who they have only met a few times.  Not eager to be around children again, she makes their lives miserable by forcing them to work in her candy store, charging them whenever candy goes missing and subjecting them to long diatribes about her difficult life.  During the course of their stay, Jay and Arty also forge a relationship with their aunt Bella (who is emotionally handicapped) and their visiting uncle Louie (who has connections to the mob).

Thoughts:  The first and second acts of this play are very, very different.  The first has a rather whimsical tone of, "How did we end up in this situation?"  In contrast, the second involves arguments between all of the major characters and pointed personal commentary about individual members of the family.  I definitely expected Neil Simon's Pulitzer Prize to be for a zany comedy.  While the play certainly has moments of humor and other comedic elements, the play is largely a realistic depiction of an American family--emotions, hurt feelings, eggshells, fights and secrets.

Angels in America: Millennium Approaches by Tony Kushner (1993)

Summary:  After being diagnosed with AIDS, Prior Walter is visited by the voice of an angel who ominously announces that "Millennium Approaches."  As Walter deals with the angel and his own relationship to Louis, other individuals and relationships are explored.  These include:
Joe and Harper--a transplanted Mormon couple drawn to homosexuality and Valium, respectively.
The very real Roy Cohn--attempting to hide the fact that he has full-blown AIDS by saying that it is Liver Cancer.
Belize--a sometimes drag queen, sometimes nurse who is loyal in his friendship to Prior and therefore skeptical of Louis.
The lives of these characters intertwine throughout the full-length play (set in the mid-80s in New York City) until finally, The Angel (no longer just a voice) bursts through Prior's ceiling proclaiming, "Greetings, Prophet.  The Great Work begins:  The Messenger has arrived."  The play ends and audiences are left to anticipate and speculate about Part Two:  Perestroika.

Thoughts:  I dreaded writing the plot summary above for days because so much happens in the first installment of Kushner's epic two-part drama.  However, though the play is expansive, the exploration of character is generally more important than the advancement of a very broad plot.

Very recently, my friend Katelyn Wood attended a lecture given by Meryl Streep (who won an Emmy for her work in Mike Nichols' filmed adaptation of the play) in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Texas at Austin.  Katelyn asked Streep about Tony Kushner and the continued relevance of Angels in America in a world where the play is increasingly less controversial.  Streep referred to Kushner as "the playwright of our time" and remarked extensively about the characters he creates, all extremely flawed in their humanity. 

All of the central characters in Angels in America are important to the advancement of plot; but moreover, they have their own flaws and personal struggles that do not always depend on interactions with others.  Often in the dramatic literature of the 20th century, rich characters are unveiled primarily through depictions of their interactions with others.  Kushner instead makes use of extensive monologues about emotions rather than argument scenes (which are often used to propel dramatic action).  While these monologues could quickly become whiny, redundant or simply boring...Kushner's ability to create multidimensional human characters makes us wonder what these characters are going to say, feel and do next.

The Piano Lesson by August Wilson (1990)

Summary:  Boy Willie returns to his sister's house to claim their heirloom family piano (they each own half of it).  With the profits from this piano, he hopes to buy some of the land that his ancestors worked on as slaves and start a new life for himself "down South."  His sister Berniece refuses, reminding him that the faces of their great-grandparents (slaves) are carved into the wood.  The piano was first owned by a white slave-owner named Mr. Sutter and then stolen by Berniece and Boy Willy's father.  Shortly after stealing the piano, he was killed...but the piano remained as inheritance for his children.  To Berniece, the object represents family history, pride, struggle and a connection to the past.

Thoughts:  As I began this project, I became more interested in various projects of great ambition by playwrights, notably Suzan Lori-Parks' 365 Days/365 Plays project (November 2002-2003) and The Pittsburgh Cycle, which contains two Pulitzer Prize winning plays.  Also called The Century Cycle, this set of Wilson's plays each represent a decade of the 1900s and were written from 1982 to 2005.

They are:
1900s:  Gem of the Ocean (2003)
1910s:  Joe Turner's Come and gone (1988)
1920s:  Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (1984)
1930s:  The Piano Lesson (PP) (1990)
1940s:  Seven Guitars (1995)
1950s:  Fences (PP) (1987)
1960s:  Two Trains Running (1991)
1970s:  Jitney (1982)
1980s:  King Hedley II (1999)
1990s:  Radio Golf (2005)

Having also read Wilson's Fences for this project, I naturally found myself drawing connections between these two works.  Both of the plays examine familial relationships and are aided by the perspective of an outsider (Bono in Fences, Lymon in The Piano Lesson).  These characters are able to offer more tempered advice and perspective as they are not relatives but have decades experience participating in the interpersonal relationships of the families.  Additionally, both of these plays contain elements of the supernatural.  In Fences, Troy's mentally handicapped brother Gabriel believes he is the angel Gabriel and has a divine vision in the final scene.  The supernatural is much more prevalent in The Piano Lesson as the ghost of Sutter (the white slave-owner whose piano was stolen by the Charles' family) appears multiple times to different members of the cast, making it very clear that he does not want the piano moved.

While critics certainly have their favorites, I am reminded of the words of my professor David Jones, who described following progress of The Pittsburgh Cycle as:  "It was like watching someone build a Gothic cathedral."

How I Learned to Drive by Paula Vogel (1998)

Summary:  Over the course of thirty years, Lil Bit's relationship with her uncle-by-marriage Peck is explored.  He teaches her to drive, takes her out drinking for the first time and eventually visits her at college.  He begins touching her inappropriately before she can reach the pedals of his car (presumably age 11), and their last meeting (when she is in college) ends in a vague sexual experience and a proposal.  She states that she will not marry him, nor will she be home for Christmas.  She never sees him again. 

 

Thoughts:  Though the summary reflects a relatively straightforward plot, Vogel uses a number of techniques to ensure that style takes center stage in this play.  Lil' Bit is played by one actress, age flexible but likely in her 30s (Mary-Louise Parker in the original Broadway cast).  However, she morphs in age back to eleven and the action of the narrative is aided by individual characters named Male Greek Chorus, Female Greek Chorus, Teenager Greek Chorus, each played by an individual actor.

 

While the incest is unquestionable, the play raises questions about degrees of guilt and innocence (Vogel describes "Peck--attractive man in his 40s.  Despite a few problems, he should be played by an actor one might cast in the role of Atticus in To Kill a Mockingbird.")  Further complicating the play, Lil' Bit sometimes directly invites Peck's touch.

 

Like Vogel's The Long Christmas Ride Home, the style of the play enables her to write a fairly straightforward dysfunctional family drama in a very unique and dynamic way.

 

Three Tall Women by Edward Albee (1994)

Summary: Three actresses play a character (not named) at different points in her life—around late 80s, 52 and 26. The actress playing the 26 year-old version is often dismissive of the advice given by older versions of herself. As such, they are both hyper-critical towards this young version of themselves. The oldest incarnation of this character is literally on her deathbed during the second act and repeatedly speaks in vague terms about an estranged son possibly coming to visit her. He does eventually visit, but never speaks.

Thoughts: In his Introduction, Albee explains, “I did not want to write a revenge piece.” However, he also makes it very clear that this play is about his adoptive mother, with whom he had a very troubled relationship (“I did not like her much, could not abide her prejudices, her loathings, her paranoias.”) With this set up, Albee creates three separate characters (though they are actually the same person), each deeply flawed. At times when they are delivering their major monologues, they paint themselves as completely unlikeable—only to later be redeemed by a different version of themselves.

Because of his extraordinarily personal introduction (he never claims that the play is not autobiographical) parts of this play made me feel like I know much more about Edward Albee than I actually do. One of the most heightened moments happens when the mother character graphically describes having adulterous sex in a barn with a stable hand, then stating that her son confronted her about it. As retaliation, she reflects on the incendiary comments made about his homosexuality that caused his abrupt premature departure from home.

"People often ask me how long it takes me to write a play, and I tell them 'all of my life.'"
-Edward Albee in the Introduction to Three Tall Women

Wit by Margaret Edson (1999)

Summary:  Fifty year-old Dr. Vivian Bearing is suffering from stage-four ovarian cancer, after having dedicated her life to the study of 17th century poetry, specifically the work of John Donne.  She struggles through an eight-month course of chemotherapy alone; but we know from page three that she will be dead by the final curtain.

Thoughts:  Perhaps the most stunning part of this play came after the end of the text in the author’s biography.  There, I learned that Margaret Edson is a kindergarten teacher from Atlanta and that Wit is her first (and only) play. 

This play could easily be cut into a one-woman show and staged productions likely depend entirely on the prowess of the actress playing Vivian.  Edson succeeds at capturing Bearing’s stiff lecturer persona while using the elegiac language of Donne partially because this language is balanced with a few actors speaking the most plain and mundane English.