The six plays in this collection all link personal and cultural change. Two are set in summer places, where families go for awhile every year as a release from where they live the rest of the time. One is set in an early twentieth century city in transition, while another takes place in a motel--by definition a place of passage. Two are set in particular rooms: a dining room, and the trophy room of a private club. The nostalgic appeal of these plays arises from their delightfully comprehensive anthropological accuracy. Not only are they an encyclopedia of droll, even arcane cultural ritual, but they are written in the perfectly pitched, dry, and very funny voice of the participants themselves. Yet even as Pete Gurney is fondly evoking this world, he shows it to be under siege, not from without, but from within. - David Trainer, Introduction
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From Library Journal
Gurney has carved out a niche for himself in the landscape of Americana, though with these plays he did not have the success he deserved in the commercial theater. This collection of six early works includes his best known, The Dining Room (1982), as well as Children, Richard Corey, The Middle Ages, The Wayside Inn, and What I Did Last Summer. A wry observer of our collectively dysfunctional culture, Gurney invokes a nostalgia for the past, which seems more stable, restrictive, and orderly than the present. At the same time, his plays resonate with longing for a freedom that only the future can bring. They lament the loss of the Father as a strong unifying figure?what could be more American??and chart the painful compromises we make to achieve some stability and some freedom. They also seek a fluidity of form, time, and place to express these ideas, which are successfully balanced in three of the plays here. The others allow us to see the artist struggling to achieve that balance. Recommended for contemporary drama collections in public and academic libraries.?Thomas E. Luddy, Salem State Coll., Mass.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
When Gurney writes in an author's note that by the mid-seventies he was aware of belonging to "an ethnic group as idiosyncratic as any other in America," it is hard not to see a little opportunism in his words. Is this member of the once dominant culture trying to justify writing yet more restrained, witty, white Anglo-Saxon drama ala Philip Barry and his earlier ilk? But Gurney proves again and again that he is no retread. From Children (his first full-length play, produced off-Broadway in 1976) on, he has been engaged in an exploration and critique of the American ruling elite as radical as it is dramatic. This critique, however, never descends into polemics or ideological name-calling. Rather, Gurney, like John Cheever, another clear-eyed observer of blue-blood rituals, remains a literate, highly readable writer, filling his plays with flesh-and-blood characters facing all the failings contemporary humanity is heir to: disappointing marriages, botched love affairs, and tense family situations that are never resolved. Jack Helbig
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the great playwrights of all time.,
By A Customer
This review is from: A. R. Gurney, Vol. II: Collected Plays, 1974-1983 (Contemporary American Playwrights) (A R Gurney Selected Plays) (Paperback)
A.R. Gurney is perhaps one of the greatest playwrights of all time. He is able to write true human drama as well as write the comedy of true life with great flare. This book highlights some of his greatest works ever. I would highly recommend this book to any theatre lover!
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