Strange Interlude by Eugene O'Neill (1928)

Summary: The play follows the life of Nina Leeds over the course of about twenty-five years and is fundamentally about her relationships with men.

When the play opens, she is grieving the loss of her fiancee Gordon. Her father fears that she might be going crazy because she has recently informed him of her plan to become an army nurse. When Gordon entered the war, the two had not consummated their relationship and she is wracked with guilt because of it. Nina secretly wants to be an army nurse so that she can provide sexual comfort to the men returning from war.

After becoming an army nurse and engaging in sexual congress with lots of soldiers, Nina feels guilty. She returns home. Charles Marsden (a writer and friend of her now-dead father) advises that she should atone for her sexual sins by marrying sweet Sam Evans. Though she does not love Sam or feel sexually attracted to him, she does.

When she gets pregnant with Sam's baby, she is thrilled. However, her mother-in-law is horrified by the pregnancy and convinces Nina that she must abort the baby because the men in Sam's family have a history of insanity. When Nina tells Mrs. Evans that the only thing keeping her happy is the pregnancy, Mrs. Evan's suggests that Nina abort the baby and then have sex with a male friend: when a child inevitably arrives, Sam will assume that it is his.

Nina enters into an affair with Dr. Ned Darrell, informs him of her plans to have his child and he agrees. Though their afternoons of rapture do produce a child, they also fall in love along the way.

When the child (named Gordon!) arrives, Sam is thrilled and Ned leaves the country. When Ned returns years later, Sam's business has taken off, Nina is a shell of her former self and Gordon is a strapping young athlete. When Sam unexpectedly dies, Gordon tells his mother and Ned (his unknown father) that they should probably marry. Because too much has passed between them, they refuse. Instead, Nina remarries old Charlie Marsden--who has remained at the periphery, closely observing all of Nina's life choices.

Thoughts: Well. Quite a plot summary.

For the second time in the project, Eugene O'Neill uses the word "slut" to describe a woman (both instances in plays from the 1920s). In each of his four Pulitzer Prize winning plays, O'Neill creates women who are central to the story but who are often sexually promiscuous, always deeply flawed and frequently spiteful and mean. While his portrayal of women is certainly cringe-inducing, it is partially obscured in this play by the fact that none of the characters are very likable. They each have sinister ulterior motives, most surrounding sex or money.

Interestingly, the ulterior motives in this play are blatantly obvious because O'Neill has made the artistic choice to have each character speak almost all of their subtext.  Usually marked by a stage direction of "thinking", these lines are meant to be spoken. Finding a way to artistically and believably stage the play would be difficult because although the characters speak their emotions, but O'Neill offers no staging advice and each line of "thinking" reads like a soliloquy. Additionally, there are certain lines without "thinking", so this could quickly become confusing for an audience member. Adding to the challenge of staging is the fact that this play contains nine acts and is over 300 pages long.

There Shall Be No Night by Robert Sherwood (1941)

Summary:  The entire play takes place in the Helsinki living room of Dr. Valkonen (who has recently won the Nobel Prize) and his wife Miranda.  The play chronicles the interactions of the family and various friends from 1938-1940.  In the early scenes, Valkonen spends an extensive amount of time talking about his reasons for being a pacifist and abhorring the war (Finland's Winter War with the Soviets) before his son Erik enlists.  Eventually, Valkonen himself joins the medical corps.  In undramatized moments, both Valkonen men die.  American-born Miranda is left both a widow and a grieving mother who feels responsible for the care of Erik's unborn child and sends his fiancee to America to have the baby.

Thoughts:  In his lengthy preface, Sherwood explains that this play is the sequel to Idiot's Delight, in which Dr. Valkonen was a minor character stuck at the hotel with a zany crew of fellow cast mates (Pulitzer Prize, 1936). 

Once again, I feel like Sherwood had a lot to say, but perhaps a play was not the best possible platform for his thoughts.  When the characters of the play are interacting with plot-driven dialogue, the play moves quickly and believable characters and relationships are created.  However, the bulk of this play (like Abe Lincoln in Illinois and Idiot's Delight) is made up of lengthy monologues about the nature of humanity and war.  In his thirty page preface, Sherwood quotes extensively from his other works and seems to make many of the same arguments that he has made before--war is not the end of humanity, but instead a chance to reflect on our mistakes and learn from them, though he seems dubious about that actually happening.

"Patriotism as now practiced is one of the most virulent manifestations of evil" (79).  

Buried Child by Sam Shepard (1979)

Summary:  Vince is driving across the country with his girlfriend Shelly and stops in Illinois to see his grandparents.  Immediately after arriving at their house, it becomes clear that something is not quite right:  his grandfather does not recognize him, his uncle is putting his fingers in Shelly's mouth and his grandmother is nowhere to be found (we later find out that she is probably having a sexual relationship with the local priest).  Vince informs Dodge (his 70 year-old grandfather) that they are on their way to see New Mexico to see his father.  Dodge replies that  Tilden is no longer in New Mexico, but has moved back to Illinois after "some trouble" and is, once again, living at the family farm home. 

As the play progresses, outsider Shelly unearths some of the family history and repeatedly states that she knows that there is a secret and she plans to find out what it is is.  The secret is finally revealed in the last few pages of the play when Dodge enters into a long monologue revealing that a baby that is buried in the backyard.  The baby is not his, but instead the child of his son Tilden and his wife Halie.  After revealing this familial incest and reading his makeshift will aloud, Dodge dies.  The final scene of the play involves Halie talking about the growth of new surprise crops while Tilden enters holding the corpse of a baby that he has presumably just exhumed from the backyard.

Thoughts:  Well, that just happened.   

I have now read this play twice, both times very quickly because I was compelled to reach the climax and learn the secrets of this family.  While the major secret of the play obviously involves incest and murder, each of Shepard's seven characters have both a secret and a personality quirk that creates a general feeling of unease throughout the entire play.  Usually, these quirks are not explained...they just happen.  For example, Bradley sticks his fingers in Shelly's mouth moments after meeting her and cuts his fathers hair while he sleeps--leaving a bloody scalp and, by all description, a terrible haircut.  Regardless, no one seems to question either of these choices--including Shelly, who has no familial obligation to put up with these bizarre antics.  

Shepard makes extensive use of monologues to reveal the exposition of the play--usually from Halie and Dodge, the oldest members of this family.  While I initially criticized this dramatic technique, I also think it is a deliberate choice to indicate that the family has stopped interacting with each other through meaningful dialogue, so monologues directed at strangers are the only effective way of revealing these family secrets. 

This play won the Pulitzer Prize twenty years before August:  Osage County was given the award, and the parallels between these scripts border on uncomfortable.  Clearly, they are both "about" dysfunctional families who have their share of secrets involving incest; but they also start the same way (the patriarch sits in darkness while the matriarch rambles upstairs).  Further, the dramatic action is dependent on the reactions of an outsider--Shelly here, Johnna in August:  Osage County.

A Chorus Line by Kirkwood/Dante/Kleban/Hamlisch (1976)

Summary:  Dancers in New York are auditioning for chorus roles in an unnamed Broadway musical.  The entire cast remains onstage for the majority of the musical while each separately delivers a monologue and interacts with Zach (the auditioner).  Ultimately, he chooses four males and four females for the production.

Thoughts:  Reading this play raised questions for me about the Pulitzer selection process.  I listened to a recording of the score the day before reading it, which unquestionably enhanced my reading experience.  None of the musicals I have encountered thus far in the project have included the music that accompanies the lyrics, so unless there is a separately obtained cast recording (in this case) or a reader has prior experience with the score (Next to Normal, Rent, others)….the reader is left to imagine what this play sounds like.  More than any other musical, the lyrics to A Chorus Line are largely rhythmic and must be accompanied by dance.  

The text of this play does not read like a stand-alone literary achievement.  Like several of the plays I have encountered, it is hugely dependent on a talented cast and, in this case, remarkable musical and dance performances.  My question is:  does the Pulitzer committee get to see all of the plays produced before giving the awards?  This certainly means that performance would have an impact on the production—especially in the cases of things like Next to Normal and A Chorus Line which are not stunning examples of literary architecture, but instead stylized musical performances.  Interestingly, I first wondered about the committee seeing performances before nominating when I read I Am My Own Wife—which is not a musical, but dependent on the work of one very talented male actor.

Though several of the monologues in A Chorus Line mention homosexuality, there is no mention of AIDS—because it was published in 1979 and is set in “the present.”  The actors each have their own set of given circumstances and emotional back-story; but are united by a common objective and have limited interactions with each other (a major departure from most of the plays that have been awarded the Pulitzer—which depend heavily on dialogue).  In fact, there are only two “relationships” in the play:  Al and Kristine are a married couple both hoping to get cast and Zach (the auditioner) was apparently once romantically connected to Cassie—who is too old to be auditioning for a chorus part.  The Zach/Cassie relationship feels a little forced, but certainly gives the play another dimension.

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.

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.

 

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)."

 

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams (1948)

Summary:  Blanche Dubois arrives in New Orleans to visit her sister Stella.  It is immediately clear that Blanche is unaccustomed to city life and uncomfortable around blue-collar workers like Stanley (Stella's husband).  Pregnant Stella attempts to keep the peace while her husband and sister antagonize each other.  Eventually, fueled by frustration, Stanley does some sleuthing and discovers that Blanche left Mississippi because she had acquired quite a reputation and had no other place to go.  Late in the play, Stanley and Blanche have implied (non-consensual?) sex.  Subsequently, Blanche is taken to a mental institution.

Thoughts:  I feel a great deal of pressure to come up with some "thoughts" about one of the most famous (and read) plays on the list.  Though this was not my first read of this play, I continue to be impressed by Williams' craftsmanship.

While the main characters in this play (arguably Blanche and Stanley) do unlikeable things, they are not unlikeable people.  Flawed?  Yes.   Unlikeable?  Certainly not.  Because they are two very different people, Williams uses two dynamic techniques to reveal their individual humanity to audiences.  Blanche is most vulnerable when delivering a monologue to Mitch (a potential admirer) about her deceased husband (a gay man who committed suicide in front of her after she told him that he disgusted her).  In contrast, Stanley's vulnerability is glaringly on display after a fight with Stella.  Following the violent outburst, he returns to his wife in a pitiful, remorseful and childlike state.  While Stella is able to see the humanity in both her sister and husband, neither Stanley nor Blanche develop sympathy for each other.  Instead, the spirit of antagonism builds to an unsavory climax.

William's Introduction is conspicuously not about the likely controversial story to follow; but is about his own process as an artist and how the success of The Glass Menagerie almost caused him to stagnate.  His final words encourage readers to live....while they still have time to do it.

Original Cast List, Signet edition

Topdog/Underdog by Suzan Lori-Parks (2002)

Summary:  Lincoln and Booth are adult brothers whose parents named them as a joke and later abandoned them when they were 16 and 11, respectively.  Younger brother Booth has recently developed an affinity for three-card monty, a game accompanied by a painful history for Lincoln.  While Booth is attempting to make money on the street, Lincoln holds a job as an Abraham Lincoln impersonator at an arcade.  At work, he sits in a chair (in whiteface) and gets "shot" by children on field trips and those seeking interesting entertainment.

Throughout the play, Booth attempts to get Lincoln to play three-card with him--arguing that they could go into business together and be wildly successful.  As the play progresses, the brothers laugh and fight and laugh and fight--until Booth reveals that he has killed his girlfriend and then kills his brother.

Thoughts:  I read this play shortly after reading some of Parks' other work (Fucking A, In the Blood, Venus) and it is evident that there are themes and characters that continue to reappear in her work.  In all four of these plays, Parks seems to argue that, whether we like it or not, our relationships with our families are significant and binding.  Even when her characters do everything in their power to break these bonds (including murder), they still remain.

The play also examines the the imperfection of memory--individuals in the same household remembering things in vastly different ways.  Although Booth is the younger brother, he saw his mother leave and was given the task of taking care of Lincoln--though he was certainly not old enough for this kind of responsibility.

"People are funny about they Lincoln shit.  Its historical.  People like they historical shit in a certain way.  They like it to unfold the way they folded it up.  Neatly like a book.  Not raggedy and bloody and screaming." 

-Topdog/Underdog, Scene 3  

 

Hell Bent Fer Heaven by Hatcher Hughes (1924)

Summary:  Sid Hunt has just returned from World War I and declares his intent to marry Jude Lowry; even though his brother Rufe also wants her.  Meanwhile, Andy Lowry (the postman and Jude's brother) shows up and a decades-old feud between the two families is discussed.  After some prohibited drinking, Andy states that he intends to settle the score and sets out to kill Sid.

Ultimately, in a quest to have Jude for himself, Rufe attempts to murder his own brother by blowing up a dam that Sid will be be crossing (to get away from Andy).  A devoutly religious man, Rufe states that God commanded the killing.  While all of this action is taking place, unprecedented rainfall threatens flooding and necessitates evacuation--and Rufe is left without a space in the boat (which the family just happens to have on hand).  Rufe is unsympathetically told that, if God actually mandated the killing, He will protect Rufe during this trial.

Thoughts:  This is another play written in "dialect" that took me hours to read.  The Hunts and Lowries are mountain people from North Carolina and this is reflected in every line of their dialogue.  This play is a rather bleak examination of human nature--greedy and grudge-filled.  While family allegiance is a major subject of the play, Hughes' work also reflects the idea that individuals fight with their own families in ways that they would not even consider in the "outside" world.

I Am My Own Wife by Doug Wright (2004)

Summary:  Doug Wright's Introduction explains that the play is "a one-woman show, performed by a man" (xix).  Charlotte von Mahlsdorf is an East Berlin transvestite who has managed to survive both the Nazis and the Communists and lives to tell about it as she guides audiences through her home--which is a sort of collector's museum.  One actor plays thirty-six characters (including the playwright) in a style reminiscent of the ethnographic performances of Anna Deavere-Smith.

Thoughts:  This play is unlike anything else on the list of plays that have been awarded the Pulitzer Prize.  Currently, it is the only one-person show on the list and it is one of the only plays that is decidedly not about American Life (which the guidelines suggest/mandate).  The other plays that I have encountered thus far that are not about "American Life" are Ruined and The Diary of Anne Frank.  An argument could be made that all three of these plays deal with issues/people that America should have cared about, but instead turned a blind eye to (genocide in the Congo, Holocaust, Communist persecution). 

One of the most compelling parts of Wright's text is the Introduction where he details the practical and emotional experience of writing this play.  He collected hundreds of hours of interviews and then was at a loss about how to put them all together.  Eventually, his colleague Robert Blacker suggested, "Whatever you do, don't write a play about history.  Write a play about your love affair with Charlotte von Mahlsdorf.  If you're lucky, the requisite history will take care of itself."   Wright replies, "It was the most liberating gift a fellow artist could give; permission to write my own story.  For the first time, the play's structure dawned on me.  It wouldn't be a straight-forward biographical drama; it would chart my own relationship with my heroine" (xv).

Wright does an excellent job of showcasing Charlotte while using the other characters to propel the narrative; but, at times, it seems that the other characters are present for the sole purpose of providing dramatic structure.  This play is moving and important, but much of it's critical acclaim should be credited to Jefferson Mays--the actor who won a Tony Award for bringing Wright's complicated text (and the complicated character of Charlotte) to life onstage.

Inscribed copy of I Am My Own Wife.  Gift from Jessica Watkins (who worked with Doug Wright at the La Jolla Playhouse, 2009). 

The Diary of Anne Frank by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett (1956)

Summary:  Thirteen year-old Anne and her family are hiding in an attic to escape discovery and capture by the Nazis.  They are joined in their confined space by the Van Daan family and a dentist named Dr. Dussel.  Eight people and a cat attempt to survive on stolen food rations while sticking to a strict nocturnal schedule to avoid capture.  Eventually, as it begins to look like the war is ending and they will be liberated, they are all captured and sent to separate concentration camps.

Thoughts:  I wasn't looking forward to reading this play, perhaps because I knew the ending, perhaps because I remember not reading the book when it was assigned circa eighth grade.  Yesterday, I complained about the lack of action in my recent reads and was certain that this play would be the same.  Instead, though the play is confined to an extremely tight area, it is largely dependent on action rather than narrative or relationships between characters.  Each time there is a knock at the door, both the characters and the audience wonder what surprises Miep has in store...or if the families in hiding have finally met their end.  Because we know how the play will end, the repeated visits from Miep create narrative tension that closely mirrors the emotional tension that each additional month in the attic causes.

While the play is obviously called The Diary of Anne Frank, the adaptation from Frank's text tells the story of the time spent in the attic--not always from her perspective.  All of the characters are well-developed and are each given the opportunity to show their multi-faceted personalities--which inevitably change under the stress of circumstance.  Though Anne becomes more important as the play progresses, this play is not full of huge monologues or chunks from the diary as I imagined that it would be.

Additionally, I think that using this play as part of a unit would be extremely beneficial for teachers required to teach Anne Frank's actual diary.  The Goodrich/Hackett adaptation piques interest in individual characters and made me wonder about what else Anne has to say about them in a diary that spans more than two years.

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.

Doubt by John Patrick Shanley (2005)

Summary:  Sister Aloysius is convinced that Father Flynn has had an inappropriate relationship with Donald Muller--a twelve year old in the parish.  She is hellbent on getting him fired and Sister James, an eager young nun, is not sure who to believe.

Thoughts:  After writing about reading Harvey, Our Town and Fences after seeing them on stage/film, I began to wonder if reading a play after you have seen it performed completely changes the experience.  While I have seen the 2008 film version of Doubt (directed by the playwright) I did not find myself constantly thinking about the inflections of Streep, Hoffman and Adams while reading this text.  Shanley's precise writing enables the text to stand alone.  With or without performance, this piece of writing is remarkable.  The language of Doubt is uncomplicated and (perhaps because of this) the dialogue moves rapidly.  The play is one of the fastest reads I have encountered in the project.

Additionally, Shanley's Prologue explains that this play was inspired by his own experiences as a child of the 60s in a strict Catholic school.  Speaking prosaically about the tension between doubt and certainty, this piece of the text is evidence that Shanley writes well in a variety of genres (he does have an Oscar for Moonstruck, after all).  Go to a bookstore and read the Prologue.  It will probably make you want to read the play.

"We've got to learn to live with a full measure of uncertainty.  There is no last word.  That's the silence under the chatter of our time."

-end of the Prologue

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

Fences by August Wilson (1987)

Personal photo:  Fences at The Cort Theatre.  1 May 2010.

Summary:  The play takes place in front of 53 year-old Troy Maxon's house.  Alternately, Troy has conversations with his friend Bono, his wife Rose, his sons Cory and Lyons and his mentally disabled brother Gabriel.  Through these interactions, Troy's life story is revealed including a distant past that involves a previous marriage and prison time, and a current affair with a woman named Alberta.  Spliced throughout these interactions are Troy's monologues about facing death and direct-address to Death...staying that whenever He comes, Troy will be waiting.  Ultimately, the family finds themselves back in the front yard preparing for Troy's funeral--eight years after the start of the play.

Thoughts:  This was my second read of this play, and in the middle of my readings I was fortunate enough to see the Kenny Leon-directed production starring Denzel Washington and Viola Davis (who both won Tony Awards for their performances).  While I really liked the play the first time, the second read was infused with the voices of Washington and Davis.  Much like the Jimmy Stewart effect on Harvey, my memories of the performance greatly enhanced my second reading experience.

Our seats were about three rows from the back of the theatre (photo above taken from my seat); but the work of Davis and Washington was palpable throughout the entire space.  The audience was at least 85% black...and very vocally responsive to the action on stage.  When Troy confesses his affair, there was a collective gasp in the audience.  Moments later when he reveals that he has no plans to stop seeing Alberta because she makes him feel something, there were groans and clucking noises of disbelief and judgment.  At the climax of his revelations, he informs Rose that Alberta is pregnant.  At this point, a woman in the orchestra section loudly shouted, "Get him!" to Rose onstage.  While reading this scene, I vividly remembered not only these outbursts but the effect that having to hold for these responses had on the rhythm of the scene.

Although The New York Times had positively reviewed Washington's performance, I was skeptical.  Struggling actor friends had expressed their displeasure with the fact that two very successful film actors were taking Broadway jobs that could have been given to actors who actually needed the money.  Moments before the production began, my friend Nick gave voice to my own skepticism.  He said, "I mean....yes...Denzel is a good actor, but I feel like I am always seeing a different version of him instead of an actual character."  Fifteen minutes into the play, we both knew that this was performance was different.  The only time I felt like I was watching Denzel Washington was when he entered for the first time and the swoons of the audience overpowered the action on stage.  Otherwise, the performances of both Washington and Davis were so powerful that I literally held my breath during each of their longer monologues.

Personal photo:  Fences with Nick and Ryan at The Cort Theatre.  1 May 2010.

"Some people build fences to keep people out...

and other people build fences to keep people in." 

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..."

No Place To Be Somebody by Charles Cordone (1970)

Summary:  Johnny Williams is a young black man who owns a bar in New York City in/around the late 1960s.  The people who come in and out of the bar have their own set of agendas and each character fulfills a very specific role/purpose.

Thoughts:  The summary above is probably the most insufficient I've written since starting this project.  There's no way to compactly summarize this play without a scene-by-scene plot description and an annotated character list.  Much like The Time of Your Life (1940), the dramatic action of this play is dependent on the actors who enter and exit the bar, but unlike ...Life, there is an enormous amount of action in this play.  The play makes a number of statements about race, ethnicity and gender in the way that it casts it's characters.  For example, the primary female characters (Dee, Evie) are whores, and the only other important female in the play is Mary Lou--a white civil rights activist who is ultimately used only as a pawn because her father is a judge and Johnny is trying to outsmart some Italian mobsters.

Most of the statements about equality and civil rights are relegated to Gabe, the poet of the group who is given long soliloquies in the form of poems that talk about black anger, white oppression and the relationship between whites and blacks in the 70s.  Gabe's statements are often eloquent, but sometimes seemed forced in a play that details the day-to-day activities of a bar.  At intervals throughout the play, a character will say something to the effect of, "Gabe!  Give us a poem now!" and the soliloquy/diatribe/important social message will begin.

Additionally, the subplot involving Johnny and the mobsters seems incredibly out of place.  With a few days distance, it almost feels like Cordone wrote a play about a bar and the characters who come through the doors, didn't think it was enough and needed to add another element of drama.  Though this play is unquestionably important (first black playwright and first off-Broadway play to win a Pulitzer), I found a surprising number of flaws.