Book Review: The Best American Short Plays 2009-2010, ed. Barbara Parisi

HTML Article first published as Book Review: The Best American Short Plays 2009-2010, Edited by Barbara Parisi on Blogcritics.

Last year's edition of The Best American Short Plays, 2008-2009 was impressive because of both the quality and the variety of the works selected. It included work by both major playwrights and some lesser known voices. Some of the plays were experimental, some were more traditional. There were serious dramatic pieces; there were comedies. It was possible to disagree with some of her selections, but certainly Barbara Parisi, the editor, had a clear critical point of view and had made her choices in the light of that aesthetic.

I'm not so sure about her criteria for her choices in the 2009-2010 edition. In her introduction, she talks about her focus on subtext which she defines as "the unspoken thoughts and motives of characters," and its importance in the short play. Now while on some level it could be argued that there is no communication without subtext, it would seem that the there are four essential criteria that ought to be considered as primary for best American short play of '09-'10. They should be American. They should be short. They should fit into the time period. They should be the best. I'm not quite sure that plays that focus on the importance of subtext automatically are the only plays that fit those criteria. Moreover I wonder about whether some of her choices fit those other criteria.

Adam Rapp's Red Light Winter, the very first play in the anthology, offers a good example of the problem. What exactly constitutes short? At 103 pages with stage directions for significant scenic moments without actual dialogue, the play doesn't seem to qualify for the short play category. Since it was first produced by Steppenwolf Theatre Company in 2005 it doesn't seem to fit the 2009-2010 category either. It does have a 2010 copyright, but there are other plays in the volume that have an earlier copyright.

It is a play that deals with three individuals who each have their own agendas, a depressed young playwright who has been considering suicide, his friend who ostensibly wants to help him out of his funk, and a prostitute who is supposed to do the job. But as the play progresses, and a second scene a year later is added, it is clear that what was happening on the surface was only a small part of the story. If subtext, then is the basic criterion, the play certainly has it. Still, in what way does it follow that subtext is the sole or even major criterion for "best?"

The volume ends with a set of seven plays which were produced together as a benefit for a multiarts center in New York. Collected under the title Seven Card Draw, they are separate and distinct pieces, and although they are all in theory, according to the creator Daniel Gallant, "darkly comic tales about risk and reward," they are also available for performance individually. In other words they do not constitute a single work. If that is the case, are all seven of the plays examples of the "best?" Truth be told, they are an uneven bunch. Four of the seven are monologues, and of the four only Neil LaBute's "Totally," which deals with a young woman's revenge on her cheating fiancée is really impressive in its creation of character. The other three, all by notables—John Guare, Clay McLeod Chapman and Gallant, himself—are nicely done, but I don't know about "best." Indeed the other three plays in the set are fine enough as well, but none is particularly memorable.

Enough carping, there are some gems in the volume. Jill Elaine Hughes has concocted a brilliant feminist comedy in This is Your Lifetime which mashes together television for women, feminine hygiene and Chunky Monkey some good natured laughs. Avi Glickstein's Pair and a Spare makes a clever comment on the failures of human connection. Death Comes for a Wedding is Joe Tracz' Kafkaesque vision of a personified Death demanding a bride as a sacrifice to avoid his wrath. Samuel Brett Williams tells the story of three misfits living in despair in Arkansas a few years after Katrina in The Trash Bad Tourist. These are finely crafted plays and worthy of inclusion in any reasonable "best of anthology."

The Motherf**ker With the Hat:Some Thoughts on Play Titles

Article first published as From the Green Room: A Play by Any Other Name on Blogcritics.

Leave it to Chris Rock to make his Broadway debut in a play more controversial for its title than for its content. I would imagine that The Motherf**ker With the Hat may well mark the first time that particular epithet has graced the marquee of any Broadway theatre, or any other theatre marquee for that matter. Motherf**ker would seem to be a term of art unlikely to attract the audience in search of The Lion King and Wicked. Off Broadway, maybe; Off, Off Broadway, perhaps even more likely, but "the Great White Way?" What could they have been thinking?

There is of course shock value. There are those who will put down their $131.50 (which according to Variety is the top ticket) simply for the title and the cocktail party conversation it could provide. It is a title you could dine out on. It reminds me of an earlier example of the same kind of thing. Back in 1996 the British playwright, Mark Ravenhill wrote one of those gritty sex and drugs dramas the British were fond of at the time called Shopping and F**cking. It was a play that met with mixed reviews when it opened in London, but as it happened, it was then taken on tour.

One of the stops that summer was at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, a festival that I happened to be attending. Now the Edinburgh Fringe Festival is the kind of extravaganza that runs theatrical performances of all kinds from early in the morning to late in the evenings in any nook or cranny where you can fit a stage and a dozen or so chairs. The program of festival events was as thick as a small town phone book. While the town was filled with theatre goers—the Edinburgh Festival was going on at the same time, as was the Royal Tattoo and a number of other events as well—many of the Fringe events had limited audiences. There was so much going on it was difficult to attract an audience. Difficult, that is, unless your name was Shopping and F**king.

No less sensation hungry than any of the other theatre mavens I managed to score a couple of tickets for one of the performances. At Edinburgh theatres are booked all day long. When one show ends, the audience clears out and the next audience, often for a different show, already lined up and waiting marches in. The line for the Ravenhill play, which was using one of the larger theatres, stretched two and three wide around the block. It was by far the largest audience for any of the shows I saw that summer. I don't know that the play was either particularly interesting or well done. Its subject matter was somewhat controversial, but not more so than any of the others in the genre. Had it been called "Shopping and Sex," I somehow doubt it would have been doing as well. Indeed, after the title, the show itself seemed kind of tame. From the reviews of The Motherf**ker With the Hat, while it would seem to be a much more exciting theatrical experience, it would seem that it too is not quite as wild as its title would indicate.

Later when I returned to the States, I decided that despite Shopping and F**king's mediocre dramatic impact, it was the kind of play I wanted to have in my library. Living in Western Pennsylvania, I didn't have any local access to a book store devoted to the theatre. Of course the best source for books on things theatrical then and probably still now was The Drama Book Shop in Manhattan. So I called to see if they had a copy. A young lady answered the phone.

"Do you have a copy of Shopping and--. . . .

"Don't say it," she said.

It turns out that whatever Motherf**ker With a Hat needed it wasn't notoriety. Tony nominations are out and the play is nominated in just about every category for which it was eligible: Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play, Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play, Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, Best Direction of a Play, and of course Best Play, to name only some. Imagine some presenter on the 65th annual Tony Awards Show on CBS announcing the winner for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, Bobby Cannavale for Motherf--.

"Don't say it."

DVD Review: The Norman Conquests

This article was first published at Blogcritics

One of the most prolific British playwrights of this or any other era, Alan Ayckbourn is noted not only for his comic sensibility, but also for some of the quirky structural elements he likes to play with. In How the Other Half Loves, for example, he uses a set that combines two different apartments and has two separate sets of related events going on simultaneously. Intimate Exchanges has a beginning scene and then offers different choices for what follows with many possibilities, two new ones following each choice made. House & Garden consists of two plays going at the same time in two different theaters, with the actors leaving one scene in one theater only to enter a scene in the other.

The Norman Conquests, a televised version of which is set to be released on DVD on the first of March, is another in this string of formal experimentation. Nominated for an Emmy for writing in 1978, it is a set of three plays, all covering the same period of time and the same six characters from three different points of view. The three plays are written so that they can be viewed in any order or independently. The plot of all three deals with the problems that arise in a dysfunctional family as the result of a planned weekend assignation that goes awry. Norman, played by Tom Conti, has arranged to go off for a romantic get away with his sister-in-law Annie (Penelope Wilton). Reg, Annie's older brother and his wife, the tightly wound Sarah, unaware of who Annie is going with, arrive to care for their invalid mother while Annie is away. The whole scheme blows up when Annie has second thoughts, Norman arrives unexpectedly and Sarah discovers what's going on. When Annie's erstwhile beau, Tom, a clueless veterinarian show up, and finally Norman's wife is added to the mix, all the makings for a raucous weekend are in place.

Table Manners, the first of the plays, is set in the dining room of Annie's country house. The second play, Round and Round the Garden takes place in the garden and Living Together, the last of the trilogy, in the living room. Since all the plays are designed so that they can be understood individually, there is understandably some repetition, but this is kept to a minimum, and more often than not the playwright's cleverness with these echoes become part of the fun. It is almost akin to dramatic irony as if the audience has been let in a joke, not everyone is privy to. While the production does move the camera around quite a bit, it makes no attempt to open up the staging beyond the specified sets, as televised versions of stage plays often do. The garden scene offers the best opportunity for variety. Other than that there is a much greater use of close up camera work than one usually gets in TV comedy.

And with this cast, close up camera work pays off with laughter. Tom Conti especially has a face made to fill a screen. Heavily bearded with a head of flowing black hair, his shaggy appearance, to say nothing of his soulful eyes, underscores the many references others make to his dog like eagerness to be loved by everyone. But he is not alone, expressive faces abound. David Troughton, the hapless Tom, is a master at physicalizing his social ineptitude. Richard Briers as Reg and Penelope Keith as Sarah are both masters of the significant look. Penelope Wilton's Annie channels both sweetness and frustration. It is an impressive ensemble, and they provide some hilarious moments. I mean, truly laugh out loud moments. They do Ayckbourn proud.

The three DVD set allows each of the plays to be presented in its entirety on one disc. Total running time for all three is a bit over three hundred minutes. There is little in the way of extras. The first disc includes a short prose biography of the playwright and the second has some background about the trilogy.