Stop Kiss by Diana Son: an analysis for production

republished for the “By Nancy” series

I first discovered this work while skimming other small theatre blogs. Imagine my pleasure that while skimming the “812.5s” at my local library, I discovered the play within our collection! I presume there was visionary librarian in Pleasantville in February 2000, when this gem of a play is indicated to have found a home here.

Stop Kiss is a light girl-meets-girl comedy that trips and falls hard into the not-quite-ready cruel world. Sara and Callie never planned on meeting, and may have never considered an affair, had their meeting never happened. The result is the true awkwardness of two people surprised by love captured within the beautiful yet ungraceful speech patterns of 20th century. Unfortunately that blossoming beauty is interrupted by a senseless act of violence that forces public definition upon two people who have yet to define what they have. Friends and family are mystified and well-meaning. Callie herself is at once exhilarated, surprised and confused.

The action is presented out of sequence, much in the style of Proof (Auburn). The juxtaposition of the non-linear scenes however aides to focus the viewer on both the beauty and the tragedy at once. We fear for the characters, knowing their fate before they do, on so many levels. The final scene ends with Sara and Callie’s awkward first kiss. We, the audience already know that this tenderness is fated to be followed by brutality. It is that brutality that forces definition. Perhaps definition of love is the most subtle and insidious brutality.

Production requirements are all feasible for most theatrical companies. It is best suited to a small stage. The cast is 6/7 (3m, 3/4f) with an age range from late 20’s to mid 40s. There are no ethnic restrictions. Several settings must be done simply as the scenes flow quickly: apartment, hospital examination, hospital room, police station house, hospital waiting room, street scene. The action is designed to be performed without intermission. Any props or costumes are contemporary: one nurse, one police detective. A series of vulgar epithets are repeated as Sara must repeatedly recount the attacker’s slurs. Editing for vulgarity would be ridiculous. Royalties are $80 per performance.

My recommendations are strong. The playwright is an American and a woman of color. The setting is again regrettably New York. However, the city of acceptance and opportunity seems in short supply of both. The irony makes the play more relatable to a broad audience. My community theatre isn’t brave enough…yet. I hope that yours is right now.

Provenance:

Diana Son is a producer and writer, known for Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001), Blue Bloods (2010) and Love Is a Four-Letter Word (2015) http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1788547/ . She is the recipient of an NEA/TCG Theatre Residency Grant with the Mark Taper Forum, and a Brooks Atkinson Fellowship at the Royal National Theatre in London, and a member of the Playwrights Unit in Residence at the Joseph Papp Public Theater.

Son’s full length debut Stop Kiss was critically acclaimed. The play was produced Off-Broadway in 1998 at The Public Theater in New York City. It was extended three times. The play has been produced by hundreds of theaters since its initial run. In 2014, Stop Kiss was produced at the Pasadena Playhouse where it made the Los Angeles Times’ “Best of 2014” list¹.

http://www.dramatists.com/cgi-bin/db/single.asp?key=2871

Available for lending from The Princeton Public Library, Princeton, IL

1. McNulty, Charles (19 December 2014). “Charles McNulty’s best stage shows of 2014”. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 18 January 2015.

Around the World in 80 Days by Mark Brown: An Analysis for Production

ACTOR 1: That’s a bit risky. If Passepartout is in cahoots with Fogg, one word from him can ruin everything.

FIX: True. I shall employ that plan only if everything else is failed.

ACTOR 1: Everything else has failed.

FIX: Yes, I know. And who’s this woman Fogg’s traveling with? Obviously they met somewhere between Bombay and Calcutta. But where? And how? And why? And what?… No… Not what. Just who, where and why. Just those three. Possibly how.

ACTOR 1: Perhaps you should just concentrate on Mr. Fogg. There is not much time left.

FIX: Yes I know. I don’t know what to do.

ACTOR 1: Looks like you’ll have to follow him to America.

FIX: Would you please leave me alone?

ACTOR 1: Because if you don’t, he’ll get away and everything everyone will think you’re a big failure.

FIX: Would you get…! Yes I know! I have to follow him to America! Just get out of here!

PASSEPARTOUT: Well Monsieur Detecumahfix (sic), have you decided to go with us to America?

FIX: Yes.

Thus goes the rapid-fire dialogue spoken by three of five actors who portray up to 35 separate roles collectively in Mark Brown’s fairly comprehensive and surprisingly respectful retelling of Jules Verne’s classic adventure novel Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours (Around the World in 80 Days). There is no deeper meaning to the text or high art in the language. The “art” is in the direction, mastery of movement and dialect, and creativity of costumers and props masters. Well-played, audiences will be entertained, hopefully stunned, and definitely exhausted by the virtuosity of the company. This play calls for a heavy-hitter creative ensemble. All scenes must be played not only with timing, but most especially integrity. Without these, the work will deteriorate into incomprehensiveness. That distinction accomplished will be the difference between a company that “is having a good time” and one that awes its audience.

Cast: 5 men / 1 woman (flexible to 35 actors, but not as fun or challenging). Age is irrelevant.

Set: Several very versatile props

Costumes: Quick change Victorian costumes (33?)

Royalties: $75/performance (educational rights. Professional rights, negotiated)

Pros: no set/ basic props become all places; a recognizable title; fits in any space; small/flexible cast; boffo physical comedy

Cons: Some mixed reviews for occasions of possibly plodding narration; several quick change Victorian costumes (33? Expensive rental?)

Censorial concerns: Caucasians actors portraying potentially stereotypical Southeast Asian characters, and three very quick, silly instances of substituting the word “piss” for “peace.”

Provenance:

Mark Brown, playwright

• Outstanding Musical of the 2008 New York International Fringe Festival (China – The Whole Enchilada )
• Received his acting training at the American Conservatory Theatre

Play:

• Premiered at Utah Shakespeare Festival
• Produced around the world: from Off-Broadway twice, all across the US, Canada, England, South Africa, Turkey, India, Bangladesh and has been translated into Turkish. It has even been produced in the Himalayas

Recommendation: STRONG with light caveats (costume costs, potential for slap-dash execution, caution for Caucasians portraying Southeast Asian characters). Strong name recognition. The setting is not NYC (but just about everywhere else). A great production will entertain and WOW your audience.

Reviews:

LA:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-review-around-the-world-in-80-days-at-actors-coop-20150512-story.html

NY:

http://variety.com/2008/legit/reviews/around-the-world-in-80-days-3-1200508242/

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/07/theater/reviews/around-the-world-in-80-days-at-new-theater-at-45th-street.html

To be fair:

http://www.broadwayworld.com/seattle/article/BWW-Reviews-Villages-AROUND-THE-WORLD-IN-80-DAYS-Fails-to-Thrill-20150126

DC:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/12/AR2010051202533.html

Seattle:

http://www.seattletimes.com/news/around-the-world-in-80-days-a-delightful-jaunt/

Search YouTube for “Around the World in 80 Days by Mark Brown” and you will see several concepts.

Purchase: http://www.dramaticpublishing.com/p1781/Around-the-World-in-80-Days/product_info.html

Available for lending from Columbia College Library, Chicago, IL

Fool for Love by Sam Shepard (1983): an analysis for production

Eddie: “She’s just standing there, staring at me, and I’m staring back at her and we can take our eyes off each other. It was like we knew each other from somewhere but we couldn’t place where. But the second we saw each other, that very second, we knew we never stop being in love¹.

Sounds romantic, doesn’t it? The love of Eddie and May, the central characters, does have its share of romance but the words dangerous, doomed, volatile, and visceral may more adequately describe the oscillating storm of their connection. As when the orbits of two planets intersect, attraction yields devastation.

“She’s just standing there, staring at me, and I’m staring back at her and we can take our eyes off each other.”

Fool²:

1:            a person lacking in judgment or prudence

2:            a :  a retainer formerly kept in great households to provide casual entertainment and commonly dressed in motley with cap, bells, and bauble

b :  one who is victimized or made to appear foolish :  a dupe

3:            a :  a harmlessly deranged person or one lacking in common powers of understanding

b :  one with a marked propensity or fondness for something <a dancing fool> <a fool for candy>

4:            a cold dessert of pureed fruit mixed with whipped cream or custard

Whereas I think the fourth definition is HILARIOUS, it seems that Eddie, May, the Old Man and most any of my readers would agree that they, and we, are often if not chronically “fools” for love. We enter into love with a “marked propensity or fondness for something (or someone),” and become a “harmlessly deranged person or one lacking in common powers of understanding.” When things break bad, and we feel as if we are “dupes, victimized or made to appear foolish.” Often despite the humiliation or even danger, to Love we become the motley fool “kept in (its) great household to provide (its) casual entertainment.”

Perhaps this is best left to the theatre professors, but Shepard has a knack for creating a new mythology. As in Tooth of the Crime, Buried Child and Curse of the Starving Class, Shepard expands archetypes into extraordinary icons. Just as the sins of the father become an ever-present overlord in our fated struggle, the ghostly Old Man (father to both Eddie and May) literally holds court as his fools “provide casual entertainment.” He serves as a fusion of post-realist and Greek theatrical traditions in the dual role of cautionary chorus and omniscient but ambivalent god. Eddie and May are both familiar and tragic heroes headed for cyclical fates. Martin, May’s naïve first-date gentleman caller, is simply a foil, catalyst, and innocent traveler trapped in the tempest of a natural disaster.

On the surface this play is straightforward with simplistic production requirements:

Cast: 3 men (30s-70s) / 1 women (30s)

Set: “Stark, low-rent motel (room) on the edge of the Mojave Desert”

Costumes: Contemporary, western

Royalties: $100/performance, plus suggested use of 2 Merle Haggard tunes

On further reading, the production becomes even more demanding. Fool for Love requires two strong leads in 30’s that must develop the depth of a 15-20 year complicated relationship. The set includes two doors that are “amplified with microphones and the bass drum head in the frame so that each time after (an actor) slams it, the door blooms loud and long.” It might be replaced by a sound effect, but this could easily violate Shepard’s intention to communicate the power of Eddie and May’s relationship in terms that are literally tangible to the audience, and directly and immediately connected to characters’ behaviors. Attempting to accomplish this play without physically trained actors and an experienced stage combat choreographer is foolish as it would guarantee injuries and unpredictable destruction of properties and set pieces. No organization can afford either.

Censorial concerns: 24 instances of language and phrases considered profane including “fuckin’(1),”; “twat(1),” “pussy (2)”, “goddamn (3),” “shit(5),” and crude references to sexual intercourse (2). Strong domestic violence; no sexual abuse.

Provenance:

Sam Shepard³:

• Renowned as a canonical American author
• Cannes Palme d’Or
• Pulitzer Prize
• OBIEs for “Melodrama Play” (1968), “Cowboys #2” (1968), “The Tooth of the Crime” (1972).
• Received grants from the Rockefeller and the Guggenheim Foundations
• Drama Desk Award and a New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best New Play: “A Lie of the Mind” (1986)

Play:

• Adapted into a 1985 motion picture starring Sam Shepard, Kim Basinger, Harry Dean Stanton, and Randy Quaid⁴
• Original production starred Ed Harris and Kathy Baker¹
• New York, London
• Williamstown Theater Festival in Williamstown, MA on July 24, 2014⁵

Recommendation: STRONG with caveats. Sam Shepard is quite possibly our greatest living American playwright. The setting is rural (not NYC!). The theme of destructive and unavoidable power of attraction is timeless. The central acting parts are epic. You may be lucky enough to have a certified combat choreographer in your ensemble, the budget to hire one, or even have the fortune to have her/him direct or star in your production.

http://www.dramatists.com/cgi-bin/db/single.asp?key=1214

Available for lending from Princeton Public Library, Princeton, IL

References:

1. Fool for Love and The Sad Lament of Pecos Bill on the Eve of Killing His Wife. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1983.
2. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fool (8/14/2015 3:39 PM)
3. http://www.sam-shepard.com/aboutsam.html (8/14/2015 4:55 PM)
4. http://www.sam-shepard.com/writer.html
5. http://www.sam-shepard.com/writer.html

Tigers be Still by Kim Rosenstock: an analysis for production

There is a tiger roaming loose keeping everyone indoors. At least it’s a good excuse. Through the journeys of 5 souls trapped by individual tragedies of varying scope with absurd consequences we come to learn that both the actual and metaphorical tigers have been just been waiting for someone to end the misery:

Zack: “I stare into the tiger’s big yellow eyes and I swear it’s like he wants me to shoot him. He’s tired. And alone. And lost. And I think: Yeah, sure this tiger’s dangerous—- but if you really think about it, who isn’t?

In the course of Kim Rosenstock’s poignant, disarming and hilarious dialogue we meet our protagonist:

Sherry: “This is the story of how I stopped being a total disaster and got my life on track and did not let overwhelming feelings of anxiousness and loneliness and uselessness just, like, totally eat my brain.”

Sherry is a recent art therapy graduate who hasn’t been aggressive enough to land the job that takes her out of her mother’s home. Unseen Mom communicates with Sherry by calling the downstairs house phone from her self-imposed upstairs prison. When Dad disappeared, Mom grew sadder, and fatter. Sherry accepts a job offered by her mother’s high school boyfriend, now a graying widower, to work with his son, an angry young man who wants to believe he is satisfied working at CVS, then Walgreen’s, if only he could stop stealing candy. Her sister is trapped on the couch watching and endless loop of Top Gun, surrounded by possessions stolen from her former fiancée’s apartment (his Chihuahua’s are locked in the basement).

Provenance:

Kim Rosenstock is well known for her work on the Fox show “New Girl” and conceived and co-wrote the musical Fly By Night. She has worked on commissions for Dallas Theater Center, Roundabout Theatre Company, Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Ars Nova, where she was the 2011 Playwright-in-Residence. She is a graduate of Amherst College and holds an MFA in playwriting from Yale School of Drama.  http://www.playwrightshorizons.org/shows/plays/fly-night-new-musical/playwright, 3/7/2015 7:15:40 PM.

Tigers Be Still’s original Roundabout Underground production was nominated for an Outer Critics Circle Award. Successful productions have been mounted in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston and San Francisco.

Production requirements are all feasible, but challenging for small theatrical companies. The cast is 4 (2m, 2F) with characters aged 18, 24, 29, and 50. There are no ethnic limitations, but there are two biological families (sisters, and father and son). The absurd nature of the play’s conceits will allow leeway for simple or abstract representations of the multiple settings: living room with functional staircase to 2^nd floor, dining room, principal’s office, outdoors at night, a large shoe closet. The play is divided in to 22 scenes without an assigned act break. The New York production running time was 1 hour 35 minutes (The New York Times, 2010). All props (numerous) and costumes are contemporary. There is sporadic vulgarity as conflicts arise (including several uses of “fuck” and 1 “cocksucker”). Royalties are $100 per performance with additional fees for the use of specific popular music.

My recommendations are strong. The playwright female and American. The setting is any smaller city large enough to have a zoo (Peoria? Brookfield? Birmingham? Phoenix?) and NOT NEW YORK!!!! The central stories of young people trapped in the nest resonate across the country regardless of locale. The broad humor is sure to entertain, and all the journeys’ ends surprise and satisfy. Push hard get your board to take a pill on the language and you will have a winner on your hands.

http://www.dramatists.com/cgi-bin/db/single.asp?key=4312

Available for lending from Illinois State University

The Waverly Gallery by Kenneth Lonergan: an analysis for production

Lonergan is best known for his first theatrical success This is Our Youth (1996). Instead of the fitful travails of ill-prepared young souls making their way into the world, The Waverly Gallery showcases, Gladys Green, lawyer, activist, gallery owner and victim of dementia, who is involuntarily on her way out. Daniel Green, a speechwriter for the Environmental Protection Agency (a job once held by Lonergan) is the playwright’s stand-in and a far more sympathetic Tom Wingfield, to a far more noble Amanda:
“Long monologues that used to be part of her regular repertoire dropped out of her conversation for good. I stopped going out to dinner with her because it got to be too much or an ordeal. She rang my doorbell so much I stopped answering it all the time.”
Make no mistake; this play is regularly very funny. The first twenty times we are introduced to Gladys’ deafness, incorrigibility, and forgetfulness we find them benign and hilarious. It is the last ten times that we see how those same traits exact sadness, worry, fear and grief on her family. The tipping point is an ill-fated gallery opening for an artist of dubious talent with plates of cheese and crackers for patrons who never arrive. Then decline becomes swift and inevitable. Lonergan pulls no punches. Daniel’s closing monologue is truthful, not nostalgic:
“But I never want to forget what happened to her. I want to remember every detail, because it really happened to her, and it seems like somebody should remember it. It’s not true that if you try hard enough you’ll prevail in the end. Because so many people try so hard, and they don’t prevail.”
The playwright has unquestionable provenance. Besides This is Our Youth and Waverly Gallery, Lonergan is known for his screenplays Analyze This (1999) and The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (2000). He also contributed to the screenplay for Gangs of New York (2002). The Waverly Gallery has had well-reviewed productions in Williamstown, New York, LA, and Newton, Massachusetts.
Production requirements are all feasible for most theatrical companies. The cast is 5 (3m, 2F) with characters in their 20s, 30s ,50s and of course 80s. The tour-de-force role of Gladys needs an octogenarian of considerable talent and energy. The timing of multiple simultaneous conversations will take precise rehearsal and attention to execute. Gladys’ family (3) are New York Jews. There is no impediment (or necessity) to use other ethnicities in the additional roles. I have difficulty seeing how the multiple settings (the gallery and at least 2 apartments) are executed without detracting from the realistic simplicity of the play. Please hire a director and designer with more foresight than I currently possess. Waverly Gallery is traditionally divided into two acts. All props and costumes are contemporary. There is some vulgarity as frustration rises. Royalties are $75 per performance.
My recommendations are mixed. The playwright is an American. The setting is AGAIN regrettably New York. With America’s growing older population and the resulting crisis of care, the story will resonate with many audiences despite the locale. I can’t help but think that the inherent New York Jewish intellectual experience in which the play takes place is foreign to my audiences, and that there must be a work of similar subject and merit wherein my audiences might more readily see themselves.
http://www.samuelfrench.com/p/4859/waverly-gallery-the
Available for lending from The Princeton Public Library, Princeton, IL

Stop Kiss by Diana Son: an analysis for production

I first discovered this work while skimming other small theatre blogs. Imagine my pleasure that while skimming the “812.5s” at my local library, I discovered the play within our collection! I presume there was visionary librarian in Pleasantville in February 2000, when this gem of a play is indicated to have found a home here.

Stop Kiss is a light girl-meets-girl comedy that trips and falls hard into the not-quite-ready cruel world. Sara and Callie never planned on meeting, and may have never considered an affair, had their meeting never happened. The result is the true awkwardness of two people surprised by love captured within the beautiful yet ungraceful speech patterns of 20th century. Unfortunately that blossoming beauty is interrupted by a senseless act of violence that forces public definition upon two people who have yet to define what they have. Friends and family are mystified and well-meaning. Callie herself is at once exhilarated, surprised and confused.

The action is presented out of sequence, much in the style of Proof (Auburn). The juxtaposition of the non-linear scenes however aides to focus the viewer on both the beauty and the tragedy at once. We fear for the characters, knowing their fate before they do, on so many levels. The final scene ends with Sara and Callie’s awkward first kiss. We, the audience already know that this tenderness is fated to be followed by brutality. It is that brutality that forces definition. Perhaps definition of love is the most subtle and insidious brutality.

Production requirements are all feasible for most theatrical companies. It is best suited to a small stage. The cast is 6/7 (3m, 3/4f) with an age range from late 20’s to mid 40s. There are no ethnic restrictions. Several settings must be done simply as the scenes flow quickly: apartment, hospital examination, hospital room, police station house, hospital waiting room, street scene. The action is designed to be performed without intermission. Any props or costumes are contemporary: one nurse, one police detective. A series of vulgar epithets are repeated as Sara must repeatedly recount the attacker’s slurs. Editing for vulgarity would be ridiculous. Royalties are $80 per performance.

My recommendations are strong. The playwright is an American and a woman of color. The setting is again regrettably New York. However, the city of acceptance and opportunity seems in short supply of both. The irony makes the play more relatable to a broad audience. My community theatre isn’t brave enough…yet. I hope that yours is right now.

Provenance:

Diana Son is a producer and writer, known for Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001), Blue Bloods (2010) and Love Is a Four-Letter Word (2015) http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1788547/ . She is the recipient of an NEA/TCG Theatre Residency Grant with the Mark Taper Forum, and a Brooks Atkinson Fellowship at the Royal National Theatre in London, and a member of the Playwrights Unit in Residence at the Joseph Papp Public Theater.

Son’s full length debut Stop Kiss was critically acclaimed. The play was produced Off-Broadway in 1998 at The Public Theater in New York City. It was extended three times. The play has been produced by hundreds of theaters since its initial run. In 2014, Stop Kiss was produced at the Pasadena Playhouse where it made the Los Angeles Times’ “Best of 2014” list¹.

http://www.dramatists.com/cgi-bin/db/single.asp?key=2871

Available for lending from The Princeton Public Library, Princeton, IL

1. McNulty, Charles (19 December 2014). “Charles McNulty’s best stage shows of 2014”. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 18 January 2015.

One Slight Hitch by Lewis Black: an analysis for production

Yes, that Lewis Black: “What I find most disturbing about Valentine’s Day is, look, I get that you have to have a holiday of love, but in the height of flu season, it makes no sense.” Black has written a fast-paced, and often light and silly (if not unbalanced) farce that hardly makes a sideways glance at politics or even his characteristic constant affect of cynicism. He slightly breaks the mold of the classic farce in some ways successfully; in others, uncomfortably.

The result may be a funny evening of theatre that will leave the audience thinking, “It was really good, but why did they do THAT thing, or THAT OTHER thing?” There is much of the traditional door slamming and arrivals and departures in the knick of time to avoid calamity. To this, perhaps to lampoon the WASP veneer of the family at its center, Black steps up the vulgarity. This venture into the blue is only voiced by the younger characters but racks up points in all forms of George Carlin’s seven words, with “asshole” and “douchebag” added to the mix. A 14-year-old getting an abortion is mentioned in a comic light. The father is a corporate vice-president. There are 3 injections of fourth-wall-breaking flashback narration that are completely superfluous. Add to this a magical effect whenever the same character puts on her headphones and turns on her Walkman to tune out the world. Finally after a classic set up of the ex-boyfriend showing up on the day of the wedding, prerequisite shenanigans and innuendo, and a carbon copy Beau Jest (James Sherman) twist, the play is brought toward its neat conclusion with a page-long dramatic monologue from another genre.

The play has had a short but successful production history:

Jan 8-25, 2015: Georgia Ensemble Theatre, Roswell, GA

Jan 9-28, 2015: Florida Repertory Theatre / Ft. Myers FL

Jan 16-Feb 1, 2014: Racine Theatre / Racine, WI

Feb 6-14, 2015: John Elliott Theatre / Ontario, Canada
Production requirements are all feasible for most theatrical companies. The cast is 7 (3m, 4f) with an age range from 50s to 17. The play is most convincingly cast as all Caucasian. Five characters are from the same biological family. The only setting is the living room of an upper-class colonial revival in a suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio in 1981. All action takes place in this one location (with a visible staircase to the second floor and at least 3 doors). Act 1 and 2 are each performed in continuous action. There is much suggested pop music from the period which will require appropriate permissions. Props include wrapped wedding presents and 2 anatomically correct Polynesian fertility statues (one with a breakaway penis).

My recommendations are mixed. The playwright is an American. The story is relatable to a broad audience. The setting is MID-WESTERN!!!!!!! The dialogue is witty but the language will push this play out of consideration for most theatres who might read this blog as guidance. I look forward to reading Mr. Black’s NEXT play.

http://www.dramatists.com/cgi-bin/db/single.asp?key=4601

Available for lending from Northwestern University Library

The Unavoidable Disappearance of Tom Durnin by Steven Levenson: an analysis for production

Remember when greed was good? Me neither.

Sometimes our personal world disintegrates because of matters outside our control. Then there are those soul-wrenching times when our mantra should convert to “I am Vishnu.” Unfortunately, Tom the title character of Steven Levenson’s The Unavoidable Disappearance of Tom Durnin, never meditates on this reality. The result is a selfish scorched earth campaign that, if it were not for his son’s postscript of reconciliation and redemption, nearly burns the closing curtain.

After reading my second Levenson play in a week, I would not currently recommend a festival dedicated to his work. The scars of the recession are too fresh. For my own sake, my next read must be comedy. Core Values was rife with comic moments and there moments of lightness in …Disappearance…. but alas our Tom destroys those too. Tom has recently left prison after his sentence for a Ponzi scheme that sunk his firm, his friends and his family. He shows up unannounced to seek shelter in another piece of wreckage of own making, his son’s desolate one-bedroom house purchased in the aftermath of divorce. At first, we pity Tom as he tries unsuccessfully to rebuild the life he once knew, first by asking. Then he demands. Then he extorts. The world has moved on without him. We grow to see that Tom was once benign, but has become malignant. The cancer must be excised.

James: Maybe the future was unwritten and anything that came after this came of its own volition and its own accord. Nothing was fated. Nothing was preordained. I’d like to believe that. I’d like to think that was true (p 64).

As in Core Values, the dialogue is realistic, ironic, (sometimes) understated, and powerful. The pace is lively, with the same short scenes and overlapping dialogue cadence. Strong language is used more often than in Core Values with increasing desperation and vitriol as the play and Tom careen toward ruin. All language should be considered in context. Most strong language does not occur until the latter third of the play when stakes are higher. Tom is the mouthpiece for 95 percent of it. If you change his language, your audience might forgive him:

“I could kick your ass (1):” I’m in better physical shape than you are.

“Goddamn (1):” expletive for emphasis

“Oh my God (2):” I’m surprised and angry

“Fucking life (1):” expletive for emphasis

“Fucking around (1):” speaking flippantly or casually

“Fucked up (2):” made a mess of things

“You haven’t done shit (1):” you haven’t done anything

“Fuck you (2):” I don’t need your money/ I’m insulted

“I don’t need this/your shit (2):” I don’t need/want to hear about problems

“Everybody’s shit (1):” everybody else’s problems

Some production requirements for…Disappearance…. may be daunting. The cast is 5: 3 male, 2 female. No characters are race-specific, but Tom’s immediate family would be more convincing if they were racially homogenous. There are no dialects. There are 5 locations requiring much creativity and very specific set dressing: 2 residential interiors (1 sparse, 1 elegant), a classroom interior, a college exterior, and the inside of a luxury SUV. The play is divided into 18 scenes without a suggested act break. My audiences need the break. My theatres need to sell cheesecake. Running time is 1 hour and 40 minutes (NYTimes). Costumes are contemporary; characters need to convincingly represent varying economic classes from lower to upper middle class. Fee: $100 per performance.

Playwright bio: https://www.playscripts.com/playwrights/bios/1152

The Unavoidable Disappearance of Tom Durnin (had) its world premiere Off-Broadway at the Roundabout Theatre Company in June 2014.

Reviews:

“…smartly engrossing…unfolding the profound disorientation of people ruined by his decisions.”—Newsday.

“…the electricity in the room is palpable…Levenson’s dialogue is lean, dynamic and flows naturally.” —Time Out NY.

” …lays out a frank picture of an ordinary American family dealing with some clotted yet unhealed wounds of its own.” —TheaterMania.

“Harrowing…riveting theater.” —Bloomberg.com.

My considerations are mixed. The playwright is an American. The story ripped from recent headlines yet accessible to all who had a troubled family member (divorce, financial ruin, drugs, etc.) The dialogue and story are honest and raw (maybe too raw: see language above). It is implied that 2 characters routinely engage in extramarital relations. The setting is a smaller city large enough for Home Depot, Borders, Starbucks and a community college and close enough to a city that would house a financial firm large enough to make national news (but isn’t Portland, OR). It will need a crackerjack production team to execute the scene changes realistically, effectively and smoothly. Like many plays I review, The Unavoidable Disappearance of Tom Durnin and Levenson despite his provenance are unrecognizable to my core audience.

http://www.dramatists.com/cgi-bin/db/single.asp?key=4808

Available for lending from Millikin University, Decatur, IL