This volume collects for the first time the work of one of America's
most important, vital and original young voices. Turning the American
family drama firmly on its head, Maxwell strips more layers of
explanation from the Freudian family romance, shining light on the
humiliation and fury usually reasoned out of sight by psychologizing
playwrights. Few characters in contemporary drama are as exposed as
Maxwell's.--Marc Robinson, Village Voice
Imagine if you took a giant hatpin and stuck it into Sylvester
Stallone's Rocky. Once all the hot air had leaked out of that
melodrama about a working-class underdog who wins fame, fortune and love
in the boxing ring, you might find something very much like Richard
Maxwell's Boxing 2000. By taking a conventional formula and draining
it of all its humid sentimentality and synthetic adrenaline, Mr. Maxwell
discovers something new and unexpected. Boxing 2000 is a real
knockout: a play that not only challenges theatrical clichés, but your
ideas about theatre itself.--Wall Street Journal
It's a sensation that's felt all too rarely these days. Watching Mr.
Maxwell's work makes you think of what it must have been like to stumble
upon the baffling but seductive creations of a young Sam Shepard in the
early 1960's in the East Village.--, New York Times
This first volume collects nine of Maxwell's early works: Boxing 2000,
Caveman, House (1999 OBIE Award winner), Showy Lady Slipper and
others.
Richard Maxwell is a writer, director and songwriter. He began his
acting career with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, where he
helped found the Cook County Theater Department, which challenged the
principles of traditional acting training. He is artistic director of
New York City Players. His plays have been performed in the U.S. at Soho
Rep, The Kitchen, P.S. 122, HERE, the Williamstown Theater Festival,
Walker Arts Center and the Wexner Center for the Arts; and in Paris,
Berlin, Dublin, Brussels, Amsterdam and Vienna.
