Aunt Dan and Lemon (Wallace Shawn) (Paperback)

~ (Author) "Lemon: Hello, dear audience, dear good people who have taken yourselves out for a special treat, a night at the theater..." (more)
Key Phrases: Aunt Dan, North Vietnamese, Henry Kissinger (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This current New York hit is about people who do not believe that human beings are capable of compassion. Stage action features the cold-blooded strangling of a client by a prostitute and monologues justifying the Holocaust and the bombing of Vietnam. In a lengthy afterword Shawn discusses how momentary lapses of logic can subtly undermine our moral sense, gradually creating an immoral world view. However, many readers may feel that the text of the play communicates the very attitudes that Shawn states he deplores. A dark, difficult, and extremely disturbing play. Susan Thach Dean, Fine Arts Div., Chicago P.L.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description

Aunt Dan & Lemon takes us into the world of a young recluse named Lemon (alias Leonora) who spends her nights reading chronicles of Nazi atrocities. Lemon tells the audience about the overwhelming influence in her life of her parents' friend "Aunt Dan," an eccentric, passionate professor whose stories and seductive opinions enthrall Lemon from the time she is a young girl. The relationship that develops between Lemon and Aunt Dan and the conversations that went on in a small house on the bottom of an English garden form the focus of this play about political orientation and the allure of certain ideas-even if they lead to murder. A forceful play exposing the banality of society's evil, Aunt Dan & Lemon explores the ease with which good and bad become reconciled in the human mind.

Product Details

• Paperback: 107 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press; 1st Grove Press Ed edition (January 18, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802151035
• ISBN-13: 978-0802151032
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #790,005 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Does morality keep us from seeing the world as it truly is?, March 31, 2000

By	Lena Najarian "lmn" (Los Angeles, CA, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Aunt Dan and Lemon. (Paperback)

I unwantingly began reading this play as a class assignment and by page 3 I was captivated. I couldn't put it down. It made me think about morality and question my own ethics. Aunt Dan helped me understand the concept of ideology, knowing my "role" in society and how morality and ethics shields each of us from seeing ourselves, really seeing who we are. I look forward to reading it again...

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Play; Equality and Indifference. How Animal. How Humane., April 25, 2008

By	Aco - See all my reviews

I have read and been blown away by Shawn's The Fever and The Designated Mourner, and now by Aunt Dan and Lemon. The moral ambiguity that is the conscience of educated, middle and upper class Westerners is the stuff of Shawn's aesthetic, conversational dilemmas. To have the time to consider murder and the threats to our little comforts must come out of the need to murder, a cushion of eras and generations. How else can a society of ideals be established? While the closing speech of Lemon's understanding of Aunt Dan's ideas can be seen as repugnant, it questions just what the value of having morality is, especially when you have an intellect rooted in civilization, existence, even hope and dreams.
But what stimulates the mind even more is the consideration that Aunt Dan is wrong, that compassion can be an involuntary response or spontaneous reaction to another. That people can actually enjoy one another, honestly. Without injecting too personal a view, I'd say that the quality of this work is the potential to see the other sides, that minds are flexibile, and the pursuit of ideas-thusly societies-against our animal essence can be the trial and not the verdict.
But Shawn asks what's so bad about not caring? You may say, what's so bad about promiscuity? Prostitution? Having the memories of a childhood to keep one company in old age?
I could go on, and still not know what I'm talking about. But it feels so important and interesting. I suggest you read this work yourself, or see it, I know I'd like to.

4 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars food for thought, May 30, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Aunt Dan and Lemon. (Paperback)

do you believe killing is wrong? have you ever killed a cockroach? even if you answer no, and say that killing anything under any circumstances is wrong, wouldn't you change your mind if your home were absolutely infestated with cockroaches? if the cockroaches were dropping from the ceiling and crawling en masse up your arms and legs? then you might do something, no?

aunt dan says the nazis were simply defending their homes and that killing for them was a moral and honorable action. outrageous? come see what else aunt dan has to teach.

"lemon" wastes away in her apartment with the vivid memories of her aunt while she weighs morals, politics and the value of life.