Harbison - The Best Plays of 2014

Harbison, Lawrence, editor.
PS634.2B48 2015
812.608dc23
2015023214 www.applausebooks.com Contents
by Donald Margulies
by Dan Lauria
by Tanya Saracho
by Katori Hall
by Cori Thomas
by Eric Dufault This volume contains six terrific new plays produced during the 2014 calendar year (as opposed to the 20132014 theatrical season), which featured a plethora of new playson Broadway, Off-Broadway, and in regional theaters, so I had many to consider. I chose the plays that I feel were the most significant. And, lets face it, the ones I liked the best. The Country House , the latest from Pulitzer Prize winner Donald Margulies, lit up Broadway in a fine production by Manhattan Theatre Club at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. It starred Blythe Danner as a fading film and theater star performing at the Williamstown Theatre Festival.

Its set at her house in Williamstown, where she lives with her brother when shes in town. Hes a Vanya-esque failed actor and soon to be failed playwright. On the occasion of the death of her oldest daughter, family members converge to remember her. Theres her other daughter, a surly college student whos unimpressed by the theater and its practitioners, and the widower of her oldest daughter, a former theater director whos left the theater behind to become a successful film director. Hes brought along his new wife, which makes things awkward, particularly for the brother, who once had a fling with her when they acted together at the Humana Festival and who still carries a torch for her. Also in the mix is a handsome film star slumming in theater in a production of The Guardsman , who is invited by Ms.

Danners character to stay at her house. All the women make a play for him. Marguliess play is a wonderful Chekhovian portrait of theater people, with echoes of The Seagull and Uncle Vanya , which I, and many other critics, found entrancing. Dinner with the Boys was the biggest hit in the history of New Jersey Rep. Its a mafia comedy written by TV actor Dan Lauria (best known for playing Jack, the dad, on The Wonder Years ).The fact that Mr. Lauria starred in the production certainly helped ticket sales, but the theaters audience (and the critics) really took to the play itself, which sold out its entire run, sold out its extension, and sold out tickets for people to see it live-streamed while sitting in the lobby.

The plays about two aging mobsters, Charlie and Dom. Charlies a hit man; Dom is the mob familys cook. They are in disfavor with the family don, Big Anthony Junior, having refused to carry out a hit on another wise guy, named Leo, because he was their best friend. They have been ordered to go to a house the family owns in Northern New Jersey while Big Anthony Junior, who whacked Leo himself, decides their fate. They have also been ordered to cook and eat Leo, who Big Anthony Junior whacked. Also in the mix is Uncle Sid, the familys accountant, who has figured out where Charlie and Dom are because he has started seeing bills come in for the house.

Big Anthony Junior arrives and informs them that one of them is to whack the other. What do you think they do? This mordant comedy is one of the most hilarious plays I have seen in many a moon. Mala Hierba marked the stunning debut of a talented new playwright, Tanya Saracho, and was a hit at Second Stages Uptown series. Its about a woman named Liliana whos married to a very wealthy, rather shady man who abuses her physically, psychologically, and sexually. She cant dump him, though, because he is supporting her destitute family. In a cry for help, shes asked her former lover, Maritza, who now lives in Chicago, to come down to South Texas.

Maritza wants her to come to Chicago with her. Will she? Also in the mix is her callow stepdaughter Maritza, and a common-sense housekeeper named Yuya, who urges Liliana to suck it up and endure her husbands abusive behavior. Mala Hierba , which means bad seed, is a heartbreaking comic drama about a woman at the end of her rope. Katori Hall continued to prove that she is one of our major playwrights with her astonishing Our Lady of Kibeho , produced by Signature Theatre, based on the true story of three Rwanda girls who claimed to be able to see and hear the Virgin Mary, much to the consternation of the woman who runs the Catholic school where they are students and the local bishop. When a legate from the Vatican arrives to investigate, they wind up convincing him by what can only be described as a miracle. Eventually, they become local celebrities of sorts, and pilgrims start coming to Kibeho.

On the Feast Day of the Assumption, the Blessed Mother appears to the girls to deliver a terrible prophecy: The hills of Rwanda will run with blood. Ensemble Studio Theatre had two hits in 2014, Cori Thomass When January Feels Like Summer and Eric Dufaults Year of the Rooster , both of which the theater revived for a second run, a highly unusual occurrence Off-Broadway. Ms. Thomass play is a comic drama that follows the stories of two African American teenage boys and an Indian widow who took over her husbands bodega after he died. Shes joined by her brother, who is going through sex change procedures to become a woman. Eventually, all the stories intersect, with the possibility of love for one and all.

Year of the Rooster is a non-realistic comic drama about a hapless middle-age man who works at a McDonalds, and who is training what just may be the greatest fighter rooster who ever lived, a bantam bad boy named Oedipus Rex. If his rooster wins the big match against a longtime champion, it just may be his ticket to fame, fortune, and escape from McDonalds. Oedipus Rex, by the way, is personified by an actor costumed like a rooster would be if his was into punk. So here you have comedy, drama, comedy-drama; realism, non-realismsomething for everyone! It is my hope that you will want to produce these plays. If you do, break a leg. Anyway, I promise you six great reads.

Lawrence Harbison
Brooklyn, New York A New Play by Donald Margulies Note: This is the Broadway version of The Country House , which differs slightly from the acting edition published by Dramatists Play Service. For Dana Morosini Reeve Production History The Country House was originally commissioned by Manhattan Theatre Club. Lynne Meadow, Artistic Director, Barry Grove, Executive Producer, with funds provided by Bank of America. The Country House was produced by Manhattan Theatre Club on Broadway at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre from October 2 to November 23, 2014, with the following cast: Cast SUSIE KEEGAN: Sarah Steele ANNA PATTERSON: Blythe Danner MICHAEL ASTOR: Daniel Sunjata ELLIOT COOPER: Eric Lange NELL MCNALLY: Kate Jennings Grant WALTER KEEGAN: David Rasche Creative Team Directed by Daniel Sullivan Scenic Design by John Lee Beatty Costumes by Rita Ryack Lighting by Peter Kaczorowski Sound by Obadiah Eaves Original Music by Peter Golub Fight Direction by Thomas Schall Production Stage Manager: James FitzSimmons Characters SUSIE KEEGAN , twenty-one, a college student, the plainly lovely daughter of a recently deceased actress named Kathy and WALTER KEEGAN , sixty-six, a successful film and stage director; granddaughter of Anna Patterson , the matriarch, a great and famous actress; and niece of her late mothers brother, ELLIOT COOPER , forty-four, a failed actor and aspiring playwright. MICHAEL ASTOR , forty-five, a ruggedly handsome, charismatic actor and longtime family friend, who has become famous playing a doctor on a hit TV series.