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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 812.54
EAN num: 9780822207368
ISBN number: 0822207362
Label: Dramatists Play Service
Manufacturer: Dramatists Play Service
Quantity: 1
Printing Date: 1998-01
Publishing house: Dramatists Play Service
Sale Popularity Level: 603465
Studio: Dramatists Play Service
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Rated by buyers -
In this blackest of grey comedies, Obie Award-winning playwright Christopher Durang tackles some of the saddest and most emotionally devastating issues in life and somehow wrests humour from them. Focusing on the marriage of Bette and Boo as the linchpin around which all the action turns, he shows them apparently following the examples of their families, as they marry without a lot of thought, and then suffer. Their son Matt (Skippy) is the narrator for many of the scenes, sometimes commenting on events in which he could not have participated, as he tries to make some sense out of his family history. "Life must be ordered and then carefully considered," he intones in the opening scene, adding in the subsequent scene that "when all the facts are not immediately available, one must try to reconstruct them" through "hearsay, gossip, and apocryphal stories."
The circumstances which are the grist for Durang's onstage humour are unlikely subjects for humor, to say the least. Boo is an alcoholic and does not communicate. Bette, who has an Rh problem (in the years before this was treatable), insists on believing her priest and not her doctor and gives birth to four dead babies during the play. Her father, Paul, a stroke victim, insists on talking but can't be understood. One sister, Emily, suffers a breakdown after leaving a convent but still believes in miracles. Another sister has a disastrous marriage. The priest, called on for help in several scenes, jokes about Paul's speech problems and even about an albino humpback with a harelip, and can never stay on-topic. One character dies while eating cake and spends much of the play sitting in a chair, covered with a sheet. Another dies of cancer.
Because the play's thirty-three short scenes jump around in time and location, the author has included extensive notes at the end of the script, indicating how split-second scene changes can take place, how sets can be designed, how the costuming can be adapted from scene to scene, what music to include, and even how the characters can be played. A reader would find it helpful to read these very first in order to imagine the production. The humour is black, and the existential message of the play will not appeal to everyone, but for those fascinated by a writer's ability to turn even the darkest of subjects into a contemporary comedy, this is a play not to be missed. Mary Whipple
Rated by buyers -
Durang has crafted a beautiful and hilarious tale. Matt, the narrator, flips back and forth through time, recalling, in a surreal fashion, the events of his parents' marriage, his childhood, and the derision that ripped through his family. The script is hysterical, but it also brings up a painful, touching and ultimately comforting realization--you can't know it all. As crazy as your mother may be, she is still more vulnerable than most children. Your father may be an alcoholic, but he may also be hopelessly in love with your mother. Hate yourself for laughing at four stillbirths, and wonder why you cry at some of the nonsensical dialogue. Read this play to realize the world isn't grey and white, and some things just aren't meant to make sense. This is truly a beautiful script.
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