Christopher Durang (1941–2024)

A skillfully written, funny-as-hell play about the post 9/11 tendency to assign terroristic tendencies where they may not belong. A young woman wakes up married to someone named Zamir who may or may not have slipped her a roofie and may or may not be a criminal, terrorist, and general ne'er-do-well. She takes Zamir to meet her not-grounded-in-reality mother and extremely conservative conspiracy-minded father. Layers upon layers of twisted humor occur.

Sheer insanity from a master of insanity. The deep, painful themes of this play are made slightly easier to bear by the ridiculous plotting and strange staging techniques. Love, death, divorce, miscarriages, are all dealt with in such an abstract manner that they seem totally removed from the things we all live each and every day, even though we still remain painfully aware that these are, in fact, the things we all deal with each day. If I may be permitted the oxymoron, this black comedy show more has a savage gentleness that touches wounds, in fact rips them open, but still allows you to laugh at the blood. Few people will be fortunate enough in their life to write like this; the rest of us are fortunate that Christopher Durang can. Not for people who demand reality in art. show less

The manic genius of the author is in full show here, though spotty at times. Some jokes just plain fall flat, and some acts fail to hit home. In spite of that, it is always a pleasure to read something so different from the standard fare that is offered up by playwrights fully trained in the "rules" of theatre and unwilling to break them. Breaking rules is what Durang is all about. And while I make it a habit not to read the introductory material or afterwords in a book of plays, preferring show more to let the plays stand by themselves, I do read the notes that are written by Christopher Durang. These are not skippable; skipping his notes should be subject to severe penalty, as he has a way of writing even instructions that is uplifting. In fact, these particular notes addressed an issue I have been struggling with myself as a playwright, and knowing that Durang went through that and came through on the other side (probably not entirely unscathed, but still standing) gives me strength. So read the plays, read the notes, and enjoy. show less

Classic plays by a master of oddball black comedy. This collection includes two of the best: the Actor's Nightmare and Sister Mary Ignatius Explains it All for You. Durang has a way of twisting words and situations into pretzels that seems at first to be just weird, and then when you look at it closer, you see what he's done. He's turned reality on its head and looked at it upside down. His characters are rarely likeable, the situations they get themselves into are the most outrageously show more ridiculous situations you could imagine, but still his plays work on an intellectual and emotional level. Obviously this sort of comedy isn't for everyone, and as I imagine most of the people I know encountering Durang for the first time, I can't fathom many of them enjoying him, but there is a certain something in the way he paints the world that seems like he's the verbal equivalent of Dali. show less