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Cambridge.University.Press.Contemporary.American.Playwrights.Feb.2000.
This page intentionally left blank C O N T E M PO R A RY A M E R I C A N P L AY W RI GH T S Beginning in the cafés, lofts and small spaces of Off-Off-Broadway, and continuing in the Off-Broadway and regional theatres of the s, s and s, new American playwrights emerged committed to exploring the potential of their craft, the nature of American experience and the politics of gender and sexuality In this study Christopher Bigsby explores the works and influences of ten contemporary American playwrights: John Guare, Tina Howe, Tony Kushner, Emily Mann, Richard Nelson, Marsha Norman, David Rabe, Paula Vogel, Wendy Wasserstein and Lanford Wilson Bigsby examines, in some detail, the developing careers of some of America’s most fascinating and original dramatic talents In addition to well-known works, Bigsby discusses some of the latest plays to reach the stage This lively and accessible book, by one of the leading writers on American theatre, will be of interest to students and scholars of American drama, literature and culture, as well as to general theatre-goers C B is Professor of American Studies at the University of East Anglia and has published more than twenty-five books covering American theatre, popular culture and British drama, including Modern American Drama (Cambridge, ) He is also an award-winning novelist and regular radio and television broadcaster C O N T EM PO R A RY A ME RIC A N PL AY W R I G HT S CHRISTOPHER BIGSBY The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK 40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia Ruiz de Alarcón 13, 28014 Madrid, Spain Dock House, The Waterfront, Cape Town 8001, South Africa http://www.cambridge.org © Christopher Bigsby 2004 First published in printed format 2000 ISBN 0-511-03340-0 eBook (Adobe Reader) ISBN 0-521-66108-0 hardback ISBN 0-521-66807-7 paperback Contents Preface page vii John Guare Tina Howe Tony Kushner Emily Mann Richard Nelson Marsha Norman David Rabe Paula Vogel Wendy Wasserstein Lanford Wilson Index v Preface There has been a tendency, perhaps now beginning to change, for American drama to find itself marginalised in academe The novel, a form virtually coterminous with America’s development and a principal mechanism for investigating its amorphous nature, has been seen as central The Great American Novel shared a national hubris It was large, all-encompassing, because the nation itself was expanding and expansive, itself an imaginative enterprise that seemed to require a form commensurate with its ambition Its achievements, meanwhile, have been acknowledged by a cluster of Nobel prizes, some more explicable than others Theatre, however, seemed not quite at the centre of the culture Its history lay outside the country while for several centuries the principal lament was its failure to engage American talents, the American mind or American reality To many, indeed, it seemed principally a twentiethcentury invention and hence curiously unrooted In fact, America’s hunger for theatre, at the popular no less than the elite level, was strikingly apparent from the earliest days For much of its history, indeed, it was precisely to the theatre, in its many forms, that Americans turned for an understanding of a society whose changing nature was both its central promise and the cause of anxiety (see Richard Nelson’s The General from America) If that is less true today, when the popular dimension of theatre has been ceded to Hollywood and television, drama remains not only a sensitive barometer of social change, reponding to shifting moral and intellectual pressures, but also an internationally respected aspect of American cultural life Nonetheless, even in the present century the canon has proved remarkably restricted Given drama’s marginal role in the syllabus only a limited number of playwrights have an assured place in the intimidating piles of set texts to be found in campus book stores, along with the T-shirts and posters In terms of the postwar theatre, Edward Albee, vii viii Preface Arthur Miller, August Wilson and Tennessee Williams are predictable figures, but, despite long and impressive careers, not John Guare, David Rabe or Lanford Wilson Sometimes individual plays find their way in by way of courses stressing ethnicity, gender or sexual preference but otherwise major talents, whose work has often been acknowledged by prizes and productions, remain if scarcely unknown then largely unstudied This book is an attempt to look at the work of a number of such writers The immediate and legitimate question is why these and not others? Certainly, if there were no constraints of space (and Cambridge University Press frequently and gently reminds me that there are) I would have added many more, and did before such chapters had to be sacrificed to the twin necessities of length and price There must, inevitably, therefore, be an element of the arbitrary Where, you might ask, are Constance Congdon, Christopher Durang, Maria Irene Fornes, A R Gurney, Romulus Linney, Donald Margulies, Terrence McNally, Rochelle Owens, Wallace Shawn, Megan Terry? The list is, if not infinitely extensible, then at least a good deal longer than this, and it is that sheer length which explains such absences For the moment, then, and for the purposes of this study, I have chosen a heterogeneous group of ten writers who, for different reasons, seem to merit greater attention or whose public reputation has attached itself to certain plays at the expense of others Thus, John Guare is best known for The House of Blue Leaves and Six Degrees of Separation while Lydie Breeze and Women and Water seem to fall below the critical threshold Tony Kushner is admired for Angels in America while A Bright Room Called Day seems to me to be undervalued David Rabe still tends to be thought of as primarily a Vietnam writer, and Marsha Norman as the author of ’night Mother and little else Richard Nelson, meanwhile, seems to escape attention because, for the last decade, he has chosen to open his plays in England and to address an international theme Others – such as Tina Howe and Paula Vogel – have had to battle for recognition, their idiosyncratic approaches initially proving unpopular with directors and critics or, like Wendy Wasserstein, have fallen foul of the suspicion that humour and inconsequence are organically related There are, of course, those embraced by academe but largely ignored by the theatre Susan Glaspell, from earlier in the century, would be one such, and Adrienne Kennedy another But for the most part it is the other way around and it is that phenomenon which has led to this book These are, admittedly, scarcely unknown or unacknowledged writers Contemporary American playwrights and despair, create a dance in which they can ultimately, if hesitantly, join, as Geri plays Satie’s Gymnopédies on the piano (music deliberately chosen to invoke a wider culture than that defined by America on the one hand, and Vietnam on the other) and Lyman finally enters the music room to watch, thus simultaneously stepping back, no matter how tentatively, into the social world He is not, we eventually learn, her father, but part of her story nonetheless, offering her the truth she longs for Her adoptive father is revealed as her real father, and hence the identity she sought one she already possessed He died not wholly out of despair, then, but out of a love which could never be confessed and hence never be fully realised Now it is not Lyman who can offer her hope but she who can offer it to him as he comes, in some way, to represent the man who has died and who is thus beyond redemption Geri claims magical powers, and certainly the elements seem to oblige when she predicts storm or sunshine, and as Lyman returns to her when she casts a spell It is a magic which has led her to the one man who holds a key to the mystery of her life and which now enables her to take that life in her arms once again She returns to the piano she had abandoned as Lyman takes a hesitant step back into the world he had chosen to leave behind History begins again; the clock recommences Unfinished business is now completed Music regains its meaning Aware of Vietnamese traditions, which posit genies who have the power to control weather, Wilson is also drawn to Native American mysticism ‘I like the shamanism in American Indian tribes I think there is a native medicine that comes from a regard for the land, for ancestors and plants and how they can provide for us, for all the environment’ (Zinman, ‘Inside Lanford Wilson’, p ) It is a statement that makes perfect sense in the context of this play, but it is equally applicable to many Wilson plays which manage to celebrate the land and community while deploring those aspects of American society and of the self that conspire to destroy it And in that context there is a third character in the play, Geneva Simonson, who is also faced with a crisis The meaning of her life has been intertwined with the redwood forest which she owns and manages She, too, no longer knows who she is She, too, is about to be displaced She, like Geri, is wealthy but finds neither satisfaction nor meaning in that In the original version of the play a great deal was made of the financial manoeuvring which robbed her of her company This was stripped away It was quite literally a case of losing sight of the wood because of the trees The play, after all, is about dispossession and not its Lanford Wilson mechanics It is about deciding what is central to one’s experience and what marginal So, she begins to plan the possibility of buying back some of the land After a life of compromise she is now tempted to take a stand, having, like the others, learned the true value of things by losing them Redwood Curtain is a play about a magical healing effected in the redwood forest, the healing of a girl who does not know who she is, and of a man who can no longer face what he has become Asked by an interviewer, Toby Silverman Zinman, how this play could be said to answer the question posed by the priest in Angels Fall – ‘what manner of persons ought we to be?’ – he replied, We should be who we can be The line that I find the most moving is Lyman’s, ‘I wanted to be something’ Knocks me out, just knocks me out When we can put him back to where he can be doing something, I will be really happy – if he can be an auto mechanic again, if he can relate to people, have a life or a wife or some partner of some sort I don’t like him out there alone, and thinking that the country has abandoned him The mystery of this play is who Geri is, but the important thing is that she saved Lyman (Zinman, ‘Inside Lanford Wilson’, p ) The magic which Geri invokes is drawn partly from her mother’s culture and partly from the natural world that provides the setting for much of the play But the completion of that magic requires her to step back into the social world and to lure the stranger who is no longer a stranger back into a family which is defined not by blood but human affinity As Wilson has remarked, his sitting in the chair is the most important thing that happens in the play, and it happens when the curtain’s almost coming down He’s standing in the doorway during the entire scene with her When you see him again in the doorway and he comes in and sits down, it’s very moving – it’s one step toward being back in civilisation (Zinman, ‘Inside Lanford Wilson’, pp , ) In Edward Bond’s Saved the mending of a chair has to counterbalance all the cruelty we have seen displayed Here, a man sitting in a chair raises at least the possibility of reconstructing this society and, through the universalising power of the music (the music of relationships), other societies, too Wilson’s plays frequently feature decaying worlds, communities corrupted by greed, relationships threatened by self-regard His America has come close to betraying its dreams and ideals Looking back over his life to date he recalls the world he once knew, a natural world which now bears the marks of a history of neglect and a corrosive disregard for man’s relationship to the land that nurtured him As he has said, Contemporary American playwrights we’re screwing this gorgeous country to death I grew up on a farm and in school I studied art and architecture, and I had a rather high idea about what could be accomplished We’ve fallen so short of our possibilities We had it all, and we’re doing so little with it that it’s pitiful God, what we’re going to have to pay And we’re going to have to pay quite soon (Zinman, ‘Inside Lanford Wilson’, p ) Redwood Curtain was not a success on Broadway but, as Wilson has said: ‘I never think Broadway is the best possible circumstance for a serious play Broadway usually allows about one comedy and one, or maybe two, serious plays a year to sneak through, and they’d better be ballyhooed very heavily before they get in That’s about all the critics can cope with’ (Bryer, A Playwright’s Art, p ) It, did, however, continue to find a stage outside New York While writing a film version of Talley’s Folly, Wilson remarked that he has never had an idea that announced itself as a movie, ‘probably because I start from character and not from idea or story or situation’ (Zinman, ‘Inside Lanford Wilson’, p ) Certainly his strength as a writer has been his ability to create characters who carry the force of his ideas without, for the most part, becoming merely emblematic Beyond that, however, he has written, frequently movingly, of a country and a society that has lost touch with its own values as it has wilfully conspired in the destruction of its environment He has written about people who carry the wounds of their own experiences and who too readily retreat into stasis or distract themselves with illusions His struggle is to find some way to edge them towards redemption without himself succumbing to sentimentality His is the authentic voice of those aware of life’s promises and the consummate ease with which they are broken In the course of his career to date, Wilson has received the Drama Desk Vernon Rice Award (for The Rimers of Eldritch), the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, the Obie Award and the Outer Critics Circle Award (for Hot l Baltimore), an Obie for The Mound Builders and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Talley’s Folly Yet in some ways he remains as marginalised as his characters Perhaps it is because he is unwilling to play the game of public fame As he has said, ‘I don’t go out, I don’t television because I have too many good examples not to follow I don’t like to be feted You have to concentrate, keep it all on a human level When I win an award, I just say, thank you’ (Zinman, ‘Inside Lanford Wilson’, p ) Lanford Wilson Despite a frequently friendly response by reviewers and an acknowledgement of the central role he has played in the American theatre for thirtyfive years, he commands less attention from critics than either Sam Shepard, his contemporary, or David Mamet In part, that may be because he seldom subscribes to the bleak analysis of his fellow writers, or if he does so never quite follows the logic of that analysis, offering some consolation, some reconciliation in a gesture which can at times seem sentimental because not fully earned In part it may be because his roots are so clearly in an earlier dramatic and even social tradition, for all the fact that he appeared on the scene when those traditions were being most directly challenged In recent years his characters have acquired a more caustic language and displayed a more deeply psychotic response to the spiralling decline that now seems the backdrop to the individual lives he stages so vividly And, indeed, to look back over his career is to acknowledge just how skilful he has been in establishing the reality of such lives even if, as in the short plays which he has continued to write, they command our attention for the briefest of time He has remarked on his fascination with language and the ‘juxtaposed sounds and rhythms of characters’, for many years keeping notebooks in which he transcribed conversations ‘Not only I hear the way people talk’, he has said, ‘and the specific rhythms of their speech – but I have a talent for reproducing that in an organized and exciting way.’ But, while conceding that ‘That is a talent’ he has insisted that ‘everything else is work’ (Barnett, Lanford Wilson, p ) Plainly part of his claim on our attention does indeed lie in his use of language, in the excoriating prose and caustic exchanges of Burn This no less than in the lyricism of his earlier work But the ‘everything else’ is no less significant in a writer who has appealed to audiences from Off-Off-Broadway and Off-Broadway to Broadway and regional theatres Lanford Wilson is a gay writer who has seldom chosen to make that gayness the centre of his work (though The Madness of Lady Bright is a pioneering and remarkable exception) By the same token there are few of his plays in which gay characters not make an appearance, establishing by their presence their part in the reality which he seeks both to address and constitute Burn This was written out of a private pain which sought public expression That pain is a vein that runs throughout his plays, but it does so in work that is about loss in general, the loss of some coherence and meaning which once existed and now is all but gone, the loss of a sense of self in a world which leaves ever less room for the Contemporary American playwrights individual while at the same time conspiring against that sense of community which once offered consolation if not relief He writes of survivors, and that has a special edge for one who has lost so many friends to AIDS (Edward Albee has also commented on this in his own life), but he writes in the knowledge that quiet desperation is a common condition The theatre, therefore, becomes not so much a refuge as an acknowledgement that all is not lost, that identity can be affirmed through the creation of characters whose vital reality is at odds with their sense of decline, through the assertion that community survives because without it theatre itself could no longer function And if Wilson still permits an ambiguous resolution, that is, perhaps, implicit in the act of writing, which itself depends upon the very communication and sense of communal purpose that his plays are liable to see as deeply threatened and compromised That bleakly ironic American writer, Kurt Vonnegut, signed off his career in by remarking that ‘a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit’ (Timequake, p ) Few can claim to have done this with such conviction and yet such awareness of the nature and gravity of the struggle involved as Lanford Wilson Index Absurd Person Singular, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, , After the Fall, , Akalitis, Joanne, Albee, Edward, vii–viii, , , , , , Guare and, Norman and, Rabe and, , Vogel and, , , , , , Wilson and, Alfred, William, All God’s Chillun, All My Sons, , , Allen, Annulla, , , , Allen, Woody, Altman, Robert, American Buffalo, , , –, American Comedy, An (Nelson), , – American Daughter, An (Wasserstein), , – American Dream, The, , , , , And Baby Makes Seven (Vogel), , , –, – Anderson, Robert, André André, John, – Angels Fall (Wilson), , –, Angels in America (Kushner), viii, , , –, –, –, , Animal Crackers, Anna Christie, Anne Frank, Annulla, An Autobiography (Mann), , –, , , , , , Any Woman Can’t (Wasserstein), Apocalypse Now , Approaching Zanzibar (Howe), , –, –, , , Aristotle, Arnold, Benedict, – Art of Dining, The (Howe), , –, , Artaud, Antonin, , , , , , Artist Descending a Staircase, Arturo Ui, –, As Brother is to Brother (Rabe), see Sticks and Bones Ascent of Man, The, – Atlantic City, Ayckbourn, Alan, Bacchae, The, Backes, Nancy, , Bakhtin, Mikhail, , –, Bal (Nelson), , , , Bald Prima Donna, The, Balm in Gilead (Wilson), –, Baltimore Waltz, The (Vogel), , , , –, , –, Baraka, Amiri (LeRoi Jones), , , , Barnett, Gene A., Barr-Albee-Wilder workshop, Barry, Philip, , , Bartholomew Fair, Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel, The (Rabe), , , –, , , , Bauer, Wolfgang, –, , , , Beaumarchais, Pierre Augustin Caron de, Beckett, Samuel, –, , Howe and, –, , , Kushner and, , Norman and, , Rabe and, , Vogel and, Wilson and, , Behan, Brendan, Bellow, Saul, , , Benjamin, Walter, , , , , –, , Bernard, Kenneth, – Berrigan, Daniel, Bersani, Leo, Betsko, Kathleen, ix Between East and West (Nelson), , – Bierce, Ambrose, Index Bigsby, Christopher, Birth and Afterbirth (Howe), , –, Black Comedy, Bleckner, Jeff, Blue Highways, ‘Blue Hotel, The’, Bobbio, Norberto, Bond, Edward, , , , Guare and, Kushner and, , , – Nelson and, , Bones of Birds, The (Rabe), Bosoms and Neglect (Guare), – Boyfriend, The, Boyle, Tony, Bread and Puppet Theatre, Brecht, Bertolt, , , , , Guare and, Kushner and, , –, , , , , , , , Mann and, , –, Nelson and, , , , – Vogel and, – Breuer, Lee, ‘Bride Comes to Yellow Sky, The’, Bridges (Rabe), Bright Room Called Day, A (Kushner), viii, , –, , , Broadway, , , , Bronowski, Jacob, – Brontosaurus (Wilson), – Brook, Peter, , , – Browne, Thomas, Brustein, Robert, Bryer, Jackson R., ix, Bryne, Barbara, Bullfinch’s Mythology (Guare), , Burgoyne, John, Burke, Kenneth, Burn This (Wilson), –, Bush, George, , Café La Mama Experimental Theatre Club, – Caffè Cino, , , , , , Cage, John, Cain, James M., Caligula, Camille, Camino Real, , , , Campiello, Il, Camus, Albert, , , Caretaker, The, , Chaikin, Joseph, Chekhov, Anton, , Guare and, , , , , , Nelson and, –, Vogel and, , Wasserstein and, , Wilson and, , , , Cherry Orchard, The, , , , Chorus of Disapproval, A, Churchill, Caryl, , , , – Cino, Joe, , , , Cino, Caffè, , Circle Repertory Company, , Circus Valentine (Norman), – Closing Time (Howe), Coastal Disturbances (Howe), , , –, , Collins, Wilkie, Columbus and the Discovery of Japan (Nelson), , –, ‘Come Back When You Grow Up’, Commune, Congdon, Constance, viii Conjuring an Event (Nelson), , – Connection, The, , , , , Control, Coppola, Francis Ford, Corneille, Pierre, Coward, Noel, , Crane, Stephen, Crimes of the Heart, Crystals, the, Curse of the Starving Classes, The, Dance of Death, The, , Davis, R.G., –, Day, Doris, Day for Surprises, A (Guare), – Days Ahead (Wilson), Days of the Commune, The, de Kooning, Willem, de Mille, Agnes, Dead End, Death of a Salesman, , , , –, Deerhunter, The, DeLillo, Don, , , Deliverance Desdemona (Vogel), , , , , –, , Desire Under the Elms, Dialogic Imagination, The, Did You Write My Name in the Snow (Guare), Diderot, Denis, , Dionysus in , Disasters of War, Discourse on Vietnam, , Disney, Walt, , Index Dolan, Jill, Doll’s House, The, Dos Passos, John, ‘Dream Baby’, Dreiser, Theodore, , Duck Variations, , , Dunlap, William, Durang, Christopher, viii, , , Dürrenmatt, Friedrich, Dutchman, Ederle, Gertrude, Edmond, Eisenhower, Dwight David, Eliot, George, Emerson, Ralph Waldo, Epstein, Robert, Equus, Erdman, Nikolai, Ethan Frome (Nelson), Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference, Eustis, Oskar, Ewell, Tom, Execution of Justice (Mann), –, Family Continues, The (Wilson), Fantasia, Farquhar, George, Faulkner, William, , , , Norman and, Vogel and, , , Wilson and, , Faust, Fear and Misery of the Third Reich, – Federal Theatre, Fefu and Her Friends, Feminist Spectator as Critic, The, Feydeau, Georges, , , , Fierstein, Harvey, th of July (Wilson), , –, Film und Frau, – Fitzgerald, F Scott, , , , Flanagan, Neil, Flea in Her Ear, A, Fo, Dario, , , Ford, Henry, Ford, Richard, Foreman, Richard, , Fornes, Maria Irene, viii, , , Kushner and, Vogel and, , , Forrest, Edwin, Four Baboons Adoring the Sun (Guare), – Frank, Anne, – Freud, Sigmund, – Front Page, Fugard, Athol, Funicello, Ralph, Funny House of the Negro, The, Galileo, Gardenia (Guare), –, – Gassner, John, Gelber, Jack, , , , , Gelman, Alexander, General from America, The (Nelson), vii, , – Genet, Jean, , , , Getting Out (Norman), , , –, Gilman, Richard, Gingham Dog, The (Wilson), – Glaspell, Susan, viii, , , , Glass Menagerie, The, , , , , , , , , , Gnädige Fräulein, God’s Favorite, Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, Golden Cherub, The (Guare), Goldoni, Carlo, Gone With the Wind, Good Woman of Setzuan, The, , Goodnight Children Everywhere (Nelson), – Goose and Tomtom (Rabe), , Goya, Francisco de, Grant, Cary, Grapes of Wrath, The, Gray, Spalding, Great Gatsby, The, , Great God Brown, The, Great Nebula in Orion, The, (Wilson), Greensboro (Mann), –, Grotowski, Jerzy, Guare, John, viii, –, –, , , , , –, –, , Kushner and, Bosoms and Neglect, – Bullfinch’s Mythology, , A Day for Surprises, – Did You Write My Name in the Snow, Four Baboons Adoring the Sun, – Gardenia, –, – The Golden Cherub, The House of Blue Leaves, viii, , , , –, Landscape of the Body, –, The Loveliest Afternoon of the Year, , , Lydie Breeze, viii, , , –, , , , –, – Marco Polo Sings a Solo, , – Muzeeka, – Six Degrees of Separation, viii, , –, Index Guare, John (cont.) Something I’ll Tell You Tuesday, , Theatre Girl, The Thirties Girl, The Toadstool Boy, Women and Water, viii, , , , – Guernica, Gurney, A R., viii Guys and Dolls, , Hall, Peter, , Hamlet, , Hansberry, Lorraine, Hapgood, Happy Birthday, Montpelier Pizz-zazz (Wasserstein), Hare, David, Harris, Jed, Hart, Moss, , Harvey, Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First Years (Mann), – Hawthorne, Nathaniel, , Heat and Light Company, Hecht, Ben, Hedda Gabler, Heidi Chronicles, The (Wasserstein), , , , –, , , , , Heisenberg, Werner, Heller, Joseph, , Hellman, Lillian, , , , Hellzapoppin’, , Helms, Jesse, Hemingway, Ernest, , , , Henley, Beth, , Hepburn, Katharine, Hitler, Adolf, , , – Hoffman, Abbie, Holdup, The (Norman), , – Home Free (Wilson), , Hopkins, Gerard Manley, – Hostage, The, Hot ‘N’ Throbbing (Vogel), , –, Hot l Baltimore, The (Wilson), , –, , , House of Blue Leaves, The (Guare), viii, , , , –, House of Games, The How I Learned to Drive (Vogel), , , , –, , , – Howe, Tina, viii, –, , , –, , –, –, , , Approaching Zanzibar, , –, –, , , The Art of Dining, , –, , Birth and Afterbirth, , –, Closing Time, Coastal Disturbances, , , –, , Museum, , –, , , The Nest, –, One Shoe Off, , – Painting Churches, , , –, , , Pride’s Crossing, – Howe, William, Hudson, Rock, Hughie, , , Hunt, Linda, Hurlyburly (Rabe), , , , , –, , , , Hydriotaphia, Hydriotaphia or The Death of Dr Browne (Kushner), – Ibsen, Henrik, , , Guare and, Vogel and, , , Wilson and, , , , Iceman Cometh, The, , , , , Ikke, Ikke, Nye, Nye, Nye (Wilson), Illuminations, –, Illusion, The, Importance of Being Earnest, The, In the Boom Boom Room (Rabe), – In Circles, In the Jungle of Cities, , – Independence Day, Inge, William, , Inheritors, The, Invention of Love, The, Ionesco, Eugene, , Guare and, Howe and, , Rabe and, Wilson and, Iphigenia at Aulis, Irving, Washington, , , Isn’t It Romantic (Wasserstein), , , – Jackson, Janet, Jackson, Michael, James, Henry, , J.B., Jeremiah, Johnson, Harold O., Jones, David, Jones, LeRoi (Amiri Baraka), , , , Jonson, Ben, Jory, Jon, – Joyce, James, Judson Poets’ Theatre, Index Julius Caesar, Jungle Coup (Nelson), Kaufman, George S., , , Kellman, Barnett, , Kennedy, Adrienne, viii, , , , , Kennedy, John F., Kill Viet Cong, Killing of Yablonski, The (Nelson), , King, Carole, Kingsley, Sidney, Kintz, Linda, – Kleb, William, Klee, Paul, – Koenig, Rachel, ix Kolin, Philip C., ix, Kroll, Jack, Kullman, Colby H., ix Kunitz, Stanley, Kuoma, Kushner, Tony, viii, –, , –, –, –, , –, , , , Rabe and, Angels in America, viii, , , –, –, –, , A Bright Room Called Day, viii, , –, , , Hydriotaphia or The Death of Dr Browne, – Millennium Approaches, see Angels in America Perestroika, see Angels in America Slavs! (Thinking About the Longstanding Problems of Virtue and Happiness), – Thinking About the Longstanding Problems of Virtue and Happiness, , , , , –, La Mama, Café, – Lahr, Bert, Lamorisse, Albert, Landscape of the Body (Guare), –, Lanzmann, Claude, Lasch, Christopher, Lear , – Lehrer, Tom, Lemon Sky (Wilson), –, , Lerner, Harry H., Lessing, Doris, – Lesson, The, Levi, Primo, Lewis, Sinclair, Lie of the Mind, A, Light in August, , Light Shining in Buckinghamshire, Linney, Romulus, viii Little, Stuart W., – Little Foxes, The, , ‘Little Surfer Girl’, Living Newspaper, Living Theatre, the, , , , , , Logan, Joshua, Lolita, , , London Cuckold, The, London, Jack, Long Day’s Journey into Night, Look Back in Anger, Loveliest Afternoon of the Year, The (Guare), , , Loving Daniel Boone (Norman), – Lowell, Robert, Ludlam, Charles, –, , Ludlow Fair (Wilson), Lydie Breeze (Guare), viii, , , –, , , , –, – Lyne, Adrian, Mabou Mines, MacArthur, Charles, Macbird, McNally, Terrence, viii, , Macready, William Charles, Madness of Lady Bright, The (Wilson), , –, Mailer, Norman, Malkovich, John, , Mamet, David, , , , , , , , , Guare and, Mann and, , Rabe and, , –, Vogel and, , , , , , Wilson and, , Mammary Plays (Vogel), see How I Learned to Drive and The Mineola Twins Mandelstam, Osip, Mann, Arthur, Mann, Emily, –, –, , Annulla, An Autobiography, , –, , , , , , Execution of Justice, –, Greensboro, –, Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First Years – Still Life, –, Mann, Thomas, Mao II, Marat/Sade Marco Polo Sings a Solo (Guare), , – Margulies, Donald, viii Marriage of Figaro, The, , Marx, Karl, , , , Marx Brothers, , , , , Mason, Marshall W., Meg (Vogel), Melfi, Leonard, Melville, Herman, , , Messingkauf Dialogues, The, , Midsummer Night’s Dream, A, Milk, Harvey, –, Millennium Approaches (Kushner), see Angels in America Miller, Arthur, viii, , , , , , , , Howe and, Norman and, – Rabe and, –, Wasserstein and, Wilson and, , , , , , Mime Troupe, San Francisco, , – Mineola Twins, The (Vogel), , , – Mischianza, – Misha’s Party (Nelson/Gelman), – Mr Peters’ Connections, , – Moby Dick, , Molière, Mondale, Walter, Monroe, Marilyn, Monstrous Regiment, Moon, William Least, Morrison, Toni, Moscone, George, – Mosher, Gregory, , Mother Courage, , , , Mound Builders, The (Wilson), –, , Mourning Becomes Electra, Mr Peters’ Connections, , – Museum (Howe), , –, , , Muzeeka (Guare), – Myth of Sisyphus, The, Nabokov, Vladimir, , Nashville, Near, Timothy, Nelson, Richard, viii, –, , –, , –, –, , , An American Comedy, , – Bal , , , Between East and West, , – Columbus and the Discovery of Japan, , –, Conjuring an Event, , – Ethan Frome, The General from America, vii, , – Goodnight Children Everywhere, – Jungle Coup, Index The Killing of Yablonski, , Misha’s Party, – New England, –, – Principia Scriptoriae, , , –, The Return of Pinocchio, , – Rip Van Winkle or ‘The Works’, , –, , Roots in Water, – Sensibility and Sense, – Some Americans Abroad, , –, The Trial of Yablonski, Two Shakespearean Actors, , , –, , The Vienna Notes, , – Nest, The (Howe), –, New England (Nelson), –, – Next Time I’ll Sing to You, Nichols, Mike, , Night and Day, ’night Mother (Norman), viii, , , , , –, – Norman, Marsha, viii, –, – Circus Valentine, – Getting Out, , , –, The Holdup, , – Loving Daniel Boone, – ’night Mother, viii, , , , , –, – Sarah and Abraham, – Third and Oak: The Laundromat, –, Third and Oak: The Pool Hall, , , – Traveler in the Dark, – Trudy Blue, – North, Oliver, O’Brien, Jack, O’Casey, Sean, , ‘Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, An’, Octoroon, The, Oedipus, Oenslager, Donald, Of Mice and Men, Of Thee I Sing, Off-Broadway, –, , , Off-Off-Broadway, –, , , , , , , , – Old Glory, The, Old Times, Old Toll House, The, Oldest Profession, The (Vogel), , , –, – Oleanna, Olivier, Laurence, Olsen, John S., One and the Many, The, Index One Shoe Off (Howe), , – O’Neill, Eugene, , , , , , , , Guare and, , Howe and, Kushner and, Norman and, Rabe and, Wilson and, , , , , , , O’Neill Centre, Open Theatre, , – Oresteia, Orphan, The (Rabe), , , – Orpheus Descending, Orton, Joe, , , –, Osborne, John, Othello, , , – Our Town, , , , – Owens, Rochelle, viii, Painting Churches (Howe), , , –, , , Papp, Joe, , , , – Paradise Now, , Paris, Texas, , Pawn Ticket , Perestroika (Kushner), see Angels in America Performance Group, the, , – Philadelphia Story, The, Picasso, Pablo, Pinter, Harold, , , Guare and, Rabe and, , , Vogel and, Pirandello, Luigi, , Playing in the Dark, Plough and the Stars, The, Plutarch, Poe, Edgar Allen, Postman Always Rings Twice, The, Pride’s Crossing (Howe), – Principia Scriptoriae (Nelson), , , –, Proust, Marcel, , Provincetown Players, Public Theatre, , Pynchon, Thomas, Question of Mercy, A (Rabe), – Rabe, David, viii, , –, , Wilson and, , As Brother is to Brother, see Sticks and Bones The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel, , , –, , , , The Bones of Birds, Bridges, Goose and Tomtom, , Hurlyburly, , , , , –, , , , In the Boom Boom Room, – The Orphan, , , – A Question of Mercy, – Sticks and Bones, , , –, , –, , Streamers, , , –, Those the River Keeps, – Rabelais and His World, , Reagan, Ronald, , , , –, , , –, , Red Balloon, The, Red Devil Battery Sign, The, Redwood Curtain (Wilson), – Reflections, Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui, The, –, Return of Pinocchio, The (Nelson), , – Rice, Elmer, Rich, Frank, Rilke, Rainer Maria, Rimers of Eldritch, The (Wilson), , –, Rip Van Winkle, , , Rip Van Winkle or ‘The Works’ (Nelson), , –, , Roots in Water (Nelson), – Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Roth, Philip, , Royal Hunt of the Sun, Royal Shakespeare Company, , , Ryskind, Morrie, St Joan of the Stockyards, San Francisco Mime Troupe, , – Sandcastle, The (Wilson), Sarah and Abraham (Norman), – Saroyan, William, Saunders, James, Saved, , Savran, David, ix, , Scarlet Letter, The, , Schechner, Richard, Schmeichen, Richard, Seagull, The, Sensibility and Sense (Nelson), – Serenading Louie (Wilson), – Serpent, The, Seven Blow Jobs, : Theatre Company, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, , –, , Shaffer, Peter, , Index Shakespeare, William Brook and, Mann and, Nelson and, , , , Vogel and, , – Shakespeare the Sadist, –, , , , Shange, Ntozake, Shapiro, Mel, , Shaw, George Bernard, Shawl, The, Shawn, Wallace, viii Shepard, Sam, , , , , , , , , Nelson and, , Rabe and, , Vogel and, , , Wilson and, , Shifting Point, The, , , – Shklovsky, Victor, Shoah, Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, , Silence of the Lambs, The, Simon, Neil, , Simpson, Nicole, , Sisters Rosensweig, The (Wasserstein), , –, , – Six Degrees of Separation (Guare), viii, , –, Skin of Our Teeth, The, Slavs! (Thinking About the Longstanding Problems of Virtue and Happiness) (Kushner), – Smith, Joseph, Smith, Molly, ‘Soldier’s Home’, Some Americans Abroad (Nelson), , –, Something I’ll Tell You Tuesday (Guare), , Sophie’s Choice, ‘Soul of Man Under Socialism, The’, Sound and the Fury, The, , Spector, Phil, Spielberg, Steven, Stanislavsky, Constantin, , Star Wars, Starkweather, David, Stein, Gertrude, Steinbeck, John, , Steiner, George, , Sticks and Bones (Rabe), , , –, , –, , Still Life (Mann), –, Still Lives, Stoppard, Tom, , , , , Streamers (Rabe), , , –, Street Scene, Streetcar Named Desire, A, , , , Strictly Dishonourable and Other Lost American Plays, Strindberg, August, , , Stuart, Ellen, Styron, William, Suicide, The, Summer and Smoke, Synge, John Millingron, Szentgyorgi, Tom, Taccone, Anthony, Tale Told, A (Wilson), see Talley and Son Talley and Son (Wilson), , , , , – Talley’s Folly (Wilson), , –, , , , Talmer, Jerry, Tea and Sympathy, , Tempest, The, Terry, Megan, viii, , Theatre Girl (Guare), Theatre and Its Double, The, Theses on the Philosophy of History, , Thinking About the Longstanding Problems of Virtue and Happiness (Kushner), , , , , –, Third and Oak: The Laundromat (Norman), –, Third and Oak: The Pool Hall (Norman), , , – Third Man, The, Thirties Girl, The (Guare), ‘This Girl Is a Woman Now’, This Is the Rill Speaking (Wilson), – Thoreau, Henry David, Those the River Keeps (Rabe), – P Productions, Three Sisters, –, Threepenny Opera, The, , Thriller, Thymus Vulgaris (Wilson), – Timequake, –, Times of Harvey Milk, The, To Kill a Mockingbird, Toadstool Boy, The (Guare), Tobacco Road, Tocqueville, Alexis de, , Tom Jones, Tom Sawyer, Tooth of Crime, The, Traveler in the Dark (Norman), – Trelawny of the Wells, Trial of the Catonsville Nine, Trial of Yablonski, The (Nelson), Trifles , Index Tristram Shandy, Trotsky, Leon, , Trudy Blue (Norman), – True West, Twain, Mark, Two Gentlemen of Verona, The, Two Shakespearean Actors (Nelson), , , –, , Uncommon Women and Others (Wasserstein), , , –, , –, , Underpainter, The, Understanding Brecht, , Unfinished Play (Wilson), ‘Upturned Utopia, The’, Urn-Burial, Urquhart, Jane, US, , – Vidal, Gore, , Vienna Notes, The (Nelson), , – Viet Rock, View from the Bridge, A, Visit, The, Vogel, Paula, viii, ix, , –, –, –, , , , And Baby Makes Seven, , , –, – The Baltimore Waltz, , , , –, , –, Desdemona, , , , , –, , Hot ‘N’ Throbbing, , –, How I Learned to Drive, , , , –, , , – Mammary Plays, see How I Learned to Drive and The Mineola Twins Meg, The Mineola Twins, , , – The Oldest Profession, , , –, – Vonnegut, Kurt, , , –, Waiting for Godot, , , , , , , , ‘Walking Backwards into the Future’, Walking in the Shade, – Walton, Tony, Wandering (Wilson), Washington, George, , Washington Square Players, Wasserstein, Wendy, viii, , , –, , , , , –, An American Daughter, , – Any Woman Can’t, Happy Birthday, Montpelier Pizz-zazz, The Heidi Chronicles, , , , –, , , , , Isn’t It Romantic, , , – The Sisters Rosensweig, , –, , – Uncommon Women and Others, , , –, , –, , When Dinah Shore Ruled the Earth, Waste Land, The, Weber, Carl, Wedding, The, Weiss, Peter, , , Wellman, Mac, Wenders, Wim, Wesker, Arnold, West, Mae, – West, Nathanael, When Dinah Shore Ruled the Earth (Wasserstein/Durang), ‘Whiffenpoof Song, The’, White, Dan, –, , Whitman, Walt, , , , Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf ?, , , , Wilde, Oscar, , , Wilder, Thornton Howe and, Wilson and, , , , , , – Williams, Raymond, Williams, Tennessee, viii, , , , , , , , Guare and, , , Howe and, , Kushner and, , , Norman and, Rabe and, Vogel and, , Wilson and, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Wilson, August, viii Wilson, Lanford, viii, , , –, , –, , –, , , , – Vogel and, Angels Fall, , –, Balm in Gilead, –, Brontosaurus, – Burn This, –, Days Ahead, The Family Continues, th of July, , –, The Gingham Dog, – The Great Nebula in Orion, Home Free, , The Hot l Baltimore, , –, , , Wilson, Lanford (cont.) Ikke, Ikke, Nye, Nye, Nye, Lemon Sky, –, , Ludlow Fair, The Madness of Lady Bright, , –, The Mound Builders, –, , Redwood Curtain, – The Rimers of Eldritch, , –, The Sandcastle, Serenading Louie, – A Tale Told, see Talley and Son Talley and Son, , , , , – Talley’s Folly, , –, , , , This Is the Rill Speaking, – Thymus Vulgaris, – Unfinished Play, Wandering, Wilson, Robert, Wisteria Tree, The Index Wolfe, Tom, Women and Water (Guare), viii, , , , – Woolf, Virginia, , , , – Wooster Group, the, , World at War, The, World Beat, Wright, Richard, Wurtzel, Elizabeth, Wuthering Heights, Wycherley, William, Yablonski, Jock, Yeats, William Butler, , , You May Go Home Again, ‘You’re Sixteen’, Zinman, Toby Silverman, Zoo Story, The, , , ,