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3.56 AVERAGE
3.56 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
funny
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Betty’s Summer Vacation – Christopher Durang (DPS, 1999)
24 December 2024
5 M, 4 F. 2 Acts (5, 2)
Setting: A seaside summer vacation home. Not a chic place. The last scene is on the beach.
To some degree, Christopher Durang is the Sam Shepard of comedy. Durang’s works are comedic, they are funny and entertaining, but he never writes sympathetic characters. I’m not sure there is a single character in any show of his that I’ve read that I actually like. All of his characters are weird and aggressively individual. That could come off as quirky or charming, but he allows them all to mine too deeply into the dark, disturbed side of the human psyche.
In Betty’s Summer Vacation, Durang brings a host of broken characters into a summer rental that they have to share. The play starts as a straight-forward comedy (to the point of having an actual laugh track), but quickly begins to subvert any expectations you might have formed. First the laugh track starts laughing at things that aren’t funny, then encouraging certain actions, then simply demanding they be entertained. There are powerful scenes that should make an audience uncomfortable and veer strongly away from comedy, but then the script becomes quirkily off-kilter enough to bring the comedy back.
There is a scene regarding rape that makes all the reader, the audience, and the actors uncomfortable. As it should. But the play reacts to that scene in a (for the play’s world) logical manner that is consistent with the characters.
Good. Relatively simple scenic requirements and costumes. The biggest issue would be the “explosion” of the house and the transition to the beach location for the epilogue.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Rape, Alcohol
Christopher Durang: Take a straight-man (or, rather, woman), among absolute ludicrous people and situations, include taboo subjects. Boom! A comedy. (What can I say; it works!)
2.5. it was super funny @ times but other times i was like ,,uh u went a lil too far