"The play nicely combines Pinterian menace with caustic political
commentary." -Time
"Acerbic, elusive, poetic and chilling, the writing is demanding in a
rarefied manner. Its implications are both affecting and disturbing."
-Los Angeles Times
"In his exquisitely written dramatic lament for the decline of high
culture. . . . [Shawn] offers a definition of the self that should
rattle the defenses of intellectual snobs everywhere." -The New York
Times
Writer and performer Wallace Shawn's landmark 1996 play features three
characters--a respected poet, his daughter, and her English-professor
husband--suspected of subversion in a world where culture has come under
the control of the ruling oligarchy. Told through three interwoven
monologues, the Orwellian political story is recounted alongside the
visceral dissolution of a marriage. The play debuted at the Royal
National Theatre in London, in a production directed by David Hare, who
also directed the film version, starring Mike Nichols and Miranda
Richardson. The play's subsequent New York premiere was staged in a
long-abandoned men's club in lower Manhattan, directed by Shawn's
longtime collaborator André Gregory.
Wallace Shawn is the author of Our Late Night (OBIE Award for Best
Play), Marie and Bruce, Aunt Dan and Lemon, The Fever, and the
screenplay for My Dinner with André. His most recent play, Grasses of
a Thousand Colors, premiered last year in London.
