August: Osage County by Tracy Letts (2009)

Summary:  The three Weston sisters have returned to the home of their parents in Pawkuska, Oklahoma following the disappearance of their father.  They are joined by various relatives and a recently hired cook/maid/nurse named Johnna as they wait with their drug-addled mother for the phone to ring.  Eventually, Sheriff Heidebrecht visits the family to inform them that Bev's body has been found in the lake, an apparent suicide that will be filed as "drowning."  As the sisters attempt to figure out what to do with their mother (who has mouth cancer and is seriously addicted to painkillers), family secrets old and new are exposed. 

Thoughts:  For the second time in this project, a blurb on the back of the book compares the work to that of Eugene O'Neill.  Jeremy McCarter writes, "August:  Osage County is what O'Neill would be writing in 2007.  Letts has recaptured the nobility of American drama's mid-century heyday while still creating something entirely original."

When I read this play for the first time in May of 2010 after spending a few years lying about having read it, I was both moved and awed by the thirteen characters Letts had created.  Each of these characters is crucial to the transmission of the family narrative, and cases can be made for many of them being the "main" character.  Accordingly, both published critics and friends of mine have called this "the best play of the decade."  If the dysfunctional family is the most celebrated subject in the canon of American drama, this play certainly holds its own in the historical record.  

However, I have now read both this play and Sam Shepard's Buried Child twice and now take issue with McCarter's compliment "something entirely original."  Not only are there overlapping subjects in these plays (which happens all the time in dysfunctional family dramas), there are details and structural issues that contain uncomfortable instances of overlap (what happens in the backyard, the role of the outsider, ghostly ending...)

I still love August:  Osage County and think it is a majorly significant work that excels at doing what many American dramatists have attempted:   a realistic depiction what happens when the adult members of a family are forced back together under emotional circumstances.  However, before making proclamations about grandeur and originality, I think it is important to take a look at the play that won the Pulitzer Prize 29 years before.  

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.

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). 

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.

Long Day's Journey Into Night by Eugene O'Neill (1957)

Summary:  The play takes place over the course of one day in the summer of 1912 at the Tyrone summer home.  Patriarch James Tyrone is a mediocre but working actor, his wife Mary is a not-so-recovering morphine addict and his living sons Edmund and James are grown boys who drink too much, enjoy the company of whores and can't seem to hold continuous jobs.  Younger brother Edmund (who once did hold a job as a sailor) has an ominous persistent cough that is eventually formally diagnosed as tuberculosis, though all members of the family are slow to accept this fact.  As the day progresses from 8:30 AM to midnight, the men of the family get drunker as Mary slips into morphine-induced hysteria.

Thoughts:  Though I have not yet checked the tag counts, I am fairly certain that the most used tags in this project have been "dysfunctional family", "drama" and "alcohol."  This play is perhaps the most distilled example of the combination of these subjects.  Many of the plays in the project have taken place in living rooms, with people sitting around:  first talking to each other, then fighting with each other.  This play is certainly no exception.  From the beginning, O'Neill makes it clear that the fights on this day are not new.  Instead, they are conflicts that have been familiar to the Tyrone family since the first child (Jamie) was born.

While the play depicts the ugliness of addiction and the specific sting of family arguments, the importance of the past is a major theme in the play (reminiscent of so many recipients of the Pulitzer Prize).  The theme of "the importance of the past" is unearthed by characters with contrasting opinions on the issue (reminding me of The Piano Lesson and Topdog/Underdog).  James is hard on his sons because he wants them to do something with their lives and create a future for themselves; while Mary is obsessive about remembering the past.  She states, "The past is the present, isn't it?  It's the future, too.  We all try to lie out of that but life won't let us"  (Act 2, Scene 2).  Later, she stresses, "Only the past when you were happy is real" (Act 3).  Though things have gone wrong in her life (death of an infant named Eugene, addiction to morphine, single alcoholic sons, etc.) she yearns for a time when things were better....even though this time may be a highly fictionalized creation of her drug-addled mind.

In the Norton Anthology of Drama Introduction to this text, Martin Puchner writes that this play is probably very close to autobiography for Eugene O'Neill.  O'Neill's father was an actor.  After having some success in a production of The Count of Monte Cristo, he stayed in that role until the end of his life and was never given the chance to blossom as an actor.  Though comfortable, he probably wasn't artistically fulfilled (much like James Tyrone).  Likewise, O'Neill's mother hated traveling and never felt that the family had a "home" since they accompanied their patriarch on his tours across the United States.  This play is one of the longest in the project, and there are very few moments of levity or hope in the text.  The dramatic structure of the play (and therefore any reading/watching of it) closely mirrors the title.

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.

'Night Mother by Marsha Norman (1983)

Summary:  Jessie is planning to commit suicide and tells her mother just hours before she plans to do it.  The play chronicles their subsequent night in one continuous scene.  True character traits are revealed and words left unspoken for decades are finally uttered.

Thoughts:  No play in the Project thus far has made me as uncomfortable as this one.  Perhaps because I was familiar with the story before reading it, I knew that when Jessie promised suicide that this was a promise she would fulfill.

Adding to my discomfort was the fact that, for 18 years, I lived in a house with two women--my mother and grandmother.  They have interactions that mirror Marsha Norman's prologue note, "There is a shorthand to the talk and a sense of routine comfort to the way they relate to each other physically.  Naturally, there are also routine aggravations" (4). 

The play is a fifty-eight page scene with no intermission.  The New York Times blurb on the back of the Dramatists acting edition simply states, "...a shattering evening..."  I agree.  And know that it is not something I ever want to spend an evening witnessing.

Miss Lulu Bett by Zona Gale (1921)

Summary:  Lulu is basically a slave for her sister and brother-in-law Dwight, who agree to let her stay in their home if she cooks for them, provides childcare and looks after their aging mother.  However, when Dwight's brother Ninian comes to town, he displays an interest in Miss Lulu, whisks her away and marries her immediately.  A few weeks later, Lulu dejectedly returns "home", stating that Ninian  revealed that he had another wife somewhere that may or may not be dead.

Dwight is cruel to Lulu about the situation until Ninian eventually returns, proves his first wife's death and lives happily ever after with Lulu...once again.

Thoughts:  1918's Why Marry (written by a man) contained powerful feminist statements about the roles of women in marriage.  Because it was the first recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, I wondered if it would set an unexpected (for me) socially progressive tone for subsequent winners.  Miss Lulu Bett (written by a woman) answers the question with a resounding, "No!"  Once Lulu meets Ninian, she is completely dependent upon him for her happiness and salvation from a bad situation, even though her own romantic feelings toward him are never fully explored.  The conflicts of the play are interesting, but the return of Ninian resulting in immediate conclusion is disappointing.

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

Talley's Folly by Lanford Wilson (1980)

Summary:  The play opens with Matt directly addressing the audience, making comments about the romantic set and telling the audience that the play will be over in ninety-seven minutes.  He also states that he is going to need all the help he can get in the conversation that follows.  When Sally enters, it becomes clear that they had a hot, sexy affair the previous summer and he is back to profess his love and claim her as his wife.  Throughout the conversation, Sally resists, saying that they don't really know anything about each other and are probably too old to be getting married anyway (the play is set in 1944 and Matt is in his 40s). 

 

In response, a very guarded Matt reveals details about his past--involving a Lithuanian childhood and detainment by French and German officials in the early 1900s (this segment of the play is very important...and also very confusing).  Ultimately, Sally agrees to leave her family in Mississippi and marry Jewish Matt--a decision that will certainly not please her family.

 

Thoughts:  The first four pages of this story have a very charming, very Our Town-like appeal.  Matt seems likable, and is highly concerned with winning the emotional support and favor of the audience.  However, once Sally shows up, the charm evaporates.  The two spend the first half of the play bickering.  When Matt is finally forced to reveal something about his personal background, his narrative is purposely stilted by how he chooses to tell the story (in vague fairytale tones).  Though this play attempts to make statements about religious persecution and family pressure in relationships, I never felt myself pulling for Sally and Matt.

 

After Sally appears, a rigid fourth wall is erected and is only broken by the last line of the play:  "And so, all's well that ends... (Takes out his watch, shows time to Sally, then to audience)...right on the button.  Good night.  (They embrace)."

 

Beyond the Horizon by Eugene O'Neill (1920)

Summary:  In Act 1, the Mayo family is preparing for the departure of their son Robert who plans to go on a three year sea-voyage with his uncle.  Because he has never been one for farming, his mother and father feel that the trip will be a great way for him to find himself while his younger brother Andrew (a natural farmer) stays at home and possibly starts a relationship with Ruth (the girl he spends most of his time with).  Hours before he is supposed to leave, Robert reveals to Ruth that he has always loved her; because she elatedly reciprocates, he decides to stay.  Andy, angry and heartbroken, hastily decides he will go on the voyage instead--a distressing revelation to both of his parents.

Act 2 opens three years later.  Robert and Ruth are decidedly unhappy, have an infant child and the farm is steadily declining.  In a moment of intense anger, Ruth reveals to Robert that she has always loved Andrew.  Moments later, Andrew enters--back from a successful journey.

Five years later, Act 3 begins and things have gotten markedly worse.  The infant has died, the marriage is miserable and Robert has a terminal illness.  Andrew returns with a specialist to take care of Robert, and Robert makes his wife and brother promise to marry after his death.  They try to argue with him as he draws his dying breath.  The play ends with Ruth and Andrew looking at each other, not sure what to do.

Thoughts:  I have put off reading this play for weeks because it is one of the longest, but I really enjoyed it.  While it is another in a long line of plays about unhappy families, O'Neill's writing stands alone (meaning:  I don't think I necessarily need to see this play to fully appreciate the story/characters).

As a sickly young child, Robert spent much of his time looking "beyond the horizon" and imagining what was "out there" waiting for him.  Because he chose to stay at home, he never got to discover the world and was left with a pile of what-ifs and might-have-beens.

All The Way Home by Tad Mosel (1961)

Summary:  The Follet Family is spread out across Tennessee and meet together in Act One for an annual picnic where familial tensions and allegiances are explored for the first time. The family quietly notes that this will probably be the last time they see their Great Grandma. In Act 2, a phone call summons Jay home because his own aging father (John Henry) is in some sort of medical trouble. He makes the trip and subsequently calls home to say that he will be back home soon because it was a false alarm. When he doesn't come home, the phone eventually rings again to inform his pregnant wife Mary that he has been instantly killed in an accident. The third and final act of the play is set in the hours before the funeral, and once again explores how families interact with each other in times of both normalcy and tragedy.

Thoughts:  This play is an adaptation of James Agee's novel A Death in the Family (which also won a Pulitzer Prize). Though the play is set in 1915 and contains references to the "war between the states" and repeated usages of the N-word, it retains timeless appeal because it examines the way that normal families interact--strained individual relationships and a common bond. I think that this play will continue to retain much of its timelessness because of the central idea that families (consciously or unconsciously) prepare for certain deaths, but not others.

The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds by Paul Zindel (1971)

Summary:  Beatrice lives at home with her two daughters (Tillie and Ruth), an elderly woman named Nanny (whose family pays for her to be there) and a rabbit (who things cannot end well for).  Beatrice is emotionally abusive to her two daughters, likely drinks too much and frequently makes Tillie stay home from school to help her with Nanny and various chores around the house.  The dramatic action of the play changes when the school calls home to report that Tillie is a finalist in the school science fair.

Thoughts:  In the Introduction, Zindel writes, "I suspect it is autobiographical, because whenever I see a production of it I laugh and cry harder than anyone else in the audience."  This statement creates immediate sympathy for the author because, from start-to-finish, Beatrice is a character who no child should ever be subjected to.  Zindel's body of work includes an overwhelming majority of young adult novels.  This play, like most of those books, contains a strong moral that children are individuals, not just extensions of their parents.  Despite a horrendous upbringing, they can experience joy and ultimately triumph.

Abe Lincoln in Illinois by Robert Sherwood (1939)

Summary:  This play chronicles 30 early years in the life of Abraham Lincoln.  The opening scene depicts him being tutored (around high school age) and the final scene is his farewell to Illinois immediately before leaving for Washington, D.C.

Thoughts:  This play was a little dull, but raised a number of historical "did that actually happen?" questions for me.  Lincoln's humanity is most vividly depicted early in the play when he reveals his romantic feelings to a girl named Ann...who dies a few pages later.  He later convinces himself that marrying ambitious Mary Todd is the right decision, though feelings of romance toward her are never illuminated.  Clearly, Lincoln's oratorical skills warranted exploration which results in this play having a number of long sweeping monologues, most about labor and abolition.  This is another play whose audience enjoyment would depend almost entirely on the strength of the lead actor.

The Gassner/Barnes introduction revealed a number of interesting facts about Robert Sherwood.  As a teenager, he attended Milton Academy and then Harvard, where he "survived the threat of three expulsions for youthful capers and became an active member of the Hasty Pudding Club."  Additionally, Sherwood is responsible for writing The Best Years of Our Lives which happens to be one of my most cherished movies.  Near the end of the short biography, Gassner/Barnes remark, "The rest of his career, which included conspicuous assistance to to President Roosevelt and the invaluable service in the O.W.I. belongs to political history" (306).  An interesting followup to Archibald MacLeish, it seems.

"Ran into Stephen Douglas--and we had some argument in public..."

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.

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.