Etiquette and Vitriol: The Food Chain and Other Plays [Paperback]

Nicky Silver (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1996

The first play collection by a young master of razor-sharp wit and black humor.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

At this point in his career, you can almost visualize producers camped-out beside playwright Nicky Silver's door. Almost everything he writes gets produced, generally Off-Broadway, and almost everything produced gets raves and goes on to be staged at resident companies everywhere. Etiquitte and Vitriol is a rare opportunity to experience the uniquely neurotic comedy of Silver, both before his huge success when he was shaping his instrument, and after he becomes one of the most widely produced contemporary American playwrights. The latter two are his hits, The Food Chain and Pterodactyls. The earlier pieces are, Fat Men in Skirts (about cannibals, no less) and Free Will & Wanton Lust. He hasn't had a Broadway show, yet, but if you want to get a sense if his range, this volume is an admirable introduction.

Product Details

• Paperback: 300 pages
• Publisher: Theatre Communications Group; 1st edition (December 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1559361239
• ISBN-13: 978-1559361231
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #140,028 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Up and Coming Jewish Playwright Deserves to be Read, September 12, 2001

By 

BPD (NYC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Etiquette and Vitriol: The Food Chain and Other Plays (Paperback)

Nicky Silver's work will in time be noticed by the masses. For now, his plays will intrigue and entertain the relatively small number of people that pays allegiance to them. Etiquette and Vitriol is a well-shaped, fully engaging product. And it's funny. Extremely. It's hillarious really. And textured and smart. The work brings in characters of all sizes, and plants them together upon the stage, focusing on relationships -- familial, social, sexual... Each of the plays is hardly cluttered however. We are given a few figures to work with and thus these figures must be and are quite complex. They carry with them a certain authenticity often unrealized by many a playwright. Silver's work is impressive and sure to make jealous any aspiring artist. Buy the book. You'll love it.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars He's more like GOLD than SILVER, December 30, 2002

By 

Stephen A. Lance "philadelphiastephen" (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Etiquette and Vitriol: The Food Chain and Other Plays (Paperback)

When I was a theatre student I rarely found plays that excited me to actually want to read, direct, or act in. I was on a crusade one year buying script after script after script. Usually I would be bored and put them down after the first scene. When I picked up Etiquette and Vitriol I think I almost died. Here was a gay playwright who didn't write your normal "I'm ok and I'm gay" play. He writes about the deconstruction of families and relationships. He has an amazing ability to give you something so horribly disgusting and then to make you laugh at it. Like in FAT MEN IN SKIRTS which is a dark comedy about a mother and son who are trapped on a desert island and their struggles to survive and their inability to acclimate back to civilized culture. At the end of the first act the mother is raped by the son and in the back ground you here Bali Hai from SOUTH PACIFIC, if you get the reference of the song there is almost no way you can stop from laughing but then you realize what you are laughing at. That is the brilliance of his writing. I highly recommend all of his works!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Insight, January 9, 2004

By 

"plattypus" (Paradise Valley, AZ United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Etiquette and Vitriol: The Food Chain and Other Plays (Paperback)

This collection of plays has the ability to satisfy both the comic and tragic needs of any dramatic reader. Silver's ability to write dark comedy is perhaps unparalleled by any living playwright. He has the skill to smoothly draw the reader into an entertaining story, and then to slowly put the reader off-guard until you find yourself wrapped up in the middle of a very dark narrative.

Silver uses many different theatrical approaches in the collection. Most of his plays are a mix of dialogue and monolgue, and he often takes modernist perspectives of staging. In any given play he will engage two opposing dramatic styles -- such as Noel Coward v. Berthold Brecht in Free Will and Wanton Lust -- to accentuate his message. The playwright's language flows easily and the dialogue is smooth. While some characters at times appear to have a forced three-dimensionality, the reader feels that Silver is doing this on purpose.

The greatest benefit of Silver's gift is that, through comedy and the guise of comedy, he is able to present otherwise difficult subjects to us, such as deeper meanings of love and hate, loneliness, self-denial, and spiritual needs. Recommended for all theatre fans.