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gregbutera's review
4.0
Subversive, depraved, thought provoking and powerful plays about often undiscussed adult themes of desire, sexuality, aggression, selfishness, class, status and privilege, and how they play out in relationships. I hope to see one of them performed live one day. Was interesting to read them.
All four plays are written with a strong voice and are meant to challenge the audience. Looking for a jolly night at the theater? Not with these plays. No, they perhaps would tittilate, but also shock and disgust, maybe horrify...I could imagine long conversations and debates from the audiences as they emerge from the dark theater, heads shaking, wondering what they had just experienced. Shawn's writing is often deliberately repetitive, demonstrating the boring mundanity of the lives we live. I was alternately shocked, bored, disturbed, intrigued and puzzled while reading all of them. I'd guess that was what the author hoped to do in his audiences as well.
Aunt Dan and Lemon is still making me think. Will have to read it again I think. It's about a girl reminiscing about a favorite aunt who happened to be heavily right wing and praised the Nazis for their efficiency and Kissinger for his decision making powers. The Fever is one of the more effective things I've read to point out how privileged many of us are in our society, and uncomfortably points out how many have to suffer to enable such comfort.
A Thought in Three Parts was famously shut down by the vice squad upon its first performance in London, and was not put on in the US for decades following its script reading. Both It, and Marie and Bruce, a play about one night in the life of a bored married couple, were both shocking and depraved, completely over the top with sexual aggressive themes, and at the same time while such action is going on the dialogue is purposefully stilted, comically mundane, turning what must be a spectacle on stage into something confusingly dull by the characters dialogue. And I mean that in a good way. Both plays were purposely contradictory.
The more I write about these four plays the more I wonder why I liked reading them. But yet I did. They gave me a lot to think about despite being shocked, bored, disturbed, intrigued and puzzled.
All four plays are written with a strong voice and are meant to challenge the audience. Looking for a jolly night at the theater? Not with these plays. No, they perhaps would tittilate, but also shock and disgust, maybe horrify...I could imagine long conversations and debates from the audiences as they emerge from the dark theater, heads shaking, wondering what they had just experienced. Shawn's writing is often deliberately repetitive, demonstrating the boring mundanity of the lives we live. I was alternately shocked, bored, disturbed, intrigued and puzzled while reading all of them. I'd guess that was what the author hoped to do in his audiences as well.
Aunt Dan and Lemon is still making me think. Will have to read it again I think. It's about a girl reminiscing about a favorite aunt who happened to be heavily right wing and praised the Nazis for their efficiency and Kissinger for his decision making powers. The Fever is one of the more effective things I've read to point out how privileged many of us are in our society, and uncomfortably points out how many have to suffer to enable such comfort.
A Thought in Three Parts was famously shut down by the vice squad upon its first performance in London, and was not put on in the US for decades following its script reading. Both It, and Marie and Bruce, a play about one night in the life of a bored married couple, were both shocking and depraved, completely over the top with sexual aggressive themes, and at the same time while such action is going on the dialogue is purposefully stilted, comically mundane, turning what must be a spectacle on stage into something confusingly dull by the characters dialogue. And I mean that in a good way. Both plays were purposely contradictory.
The more I write about these four plays the more I wonder why I liked reading them. But yet I did. They gave me a lot to think about despite being shocked, bored, disturbed, intrigued and puzzled.
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