Jane Martin: Collected Plays, Vol. 2: 1996-2001 [Paperback]

Jane Martin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 2001 | ISBN-10: 1575252724 | ISBN-13: 978-1575252728 | Edition: 1

This new collection of plays brings us up-to-date with the preoccupations of Jane Martin--social satirist and purveyor of comedies and dramas that delight in popular culture, scrutinize American politics, and limn the infinite variety in human relationships. Jane Martin's plays mix the virtues of show business--meaty roles for actors, colorful dilemmas, and impassioned confrontations--with the rewards of a formidable intellect. Make no mistake about it, Jane Martin is a lively entertainer with serious intentions. Her plays, be they comic or serious or seriocomic, express a worldview that is at once empathetic and critical, familiar and surprising, endearing and savage. They teeter on a tightrope between outrageous humor and shocking violence, plummeting into both with unexpected results. - from the Foreword by Michael Bigelow Dixon, Literary Manager of the Guthrie Theater

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Martin's plays light up the stage with their heady mixture of savage humor and mayhem, as she probes the often dark side of American politics and culture and takes a sharp look at the interpersonal relationships of her characters. Martin has won several awards, including the American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award in 1994 for her full-length work Keely and Du. The ten plays in this collection include "Middle-Aged White Guys," a satire on the lost American dream set in a garbage dump and featuring a visit by an angelic Elvis. "Mr. Bundy" is a shocking examination of the dangers of self-righteous retribution, while "Flaming Guns of the Purple Sage" is a hilarious, Grand Guignol takeoff of B Westerns and slasher movies. This work makes a nice addition to Martin's other collections, Vital Signs and What Mama Don't Know. Recommended for contemporary theater arts collections in public and academic libraries. Howard Miller, St. Louis, MO
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Jane Martin is today's most famous and prolific pseudonymous dramatist, who nearly every year has a new play in the Humana Festival--a seriocomical take on a hot topic, such as white male backlash, the culture wars, the persecution of former sex offenders; or a poke at pop culture, professional wrestling, contemporary relationships, or the state of modern American theater. Martin's plays from 1996-2001, a period noted more for its bubble economy and poisonous partisan bickering than for depth of ideas, reflect on their time's shallow mendacity. Middle-Aged White Guys wittily limns three small-time businessmen who have made a quick buck filling their town with toxic waste and now must pay the price. In a serious mood, Mr. Bundy lays out the ramifications of the so-called Megan laws, which pass a virtual life sentence of fleeing fearful, angry citizens on sex offenders. Even whether Martin is one person or more is unknown, that Martin is a powerful chronicler of a peaceful, silly era in American history is certain. Jack Helbig
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 274 pages
• Publisher: Smith & Kraus Pub Inc; 1 edition (December 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1575252724
• ISBN-13: 978-1575252728
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,358,272 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Longer, deeper, thicker... but are they better?, July 24, 2002

By 

A. R. Kugelstadt "Mineralogy" (Southern California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jane Martin: Collected Plays, Vol. 2: 1996-2001 (Paperback)

Let me be up front with something: I was forced to read Jane Martin's works as a result of an inane Honors English research project, so don't expect a world-class dramaturg or ace playwright analyzer here. But a review's a review's a review, right?

To start off, I enjoy Jane Martin's works immensely. It wasn't agonizing or boring at all to read them. I read through "Jane Martin: Collected Plays 1980-1995" at breakneck speed and enjoyed almost all the works, especially the monologues. Then I ordered 1996-2001 from ... for completeness before writing my research paper.

I was not pleased. Martin has certainly expanded her horizons with this; she writes much more in-depth plays, longer plays, and fewer monologues (highly unfortunate). The plays are a little more tongue-in-cheek, a little more abstract, and... a little more painful to read through. These more modern Martin plays (ahhh, alliteration) are certainly good works by any standard, but compared to her older works, I am left a little high and dry. For all their newer, shinier wrappings, stages, and concepts, these plays seem to end up focused more on irrelevant satire or hackneyed public education messages than the razor wit and meaningful perplexity of "Vital Signs" or "Talking With..."

Maybe I'm just out of it, but it seems to me like Martin has, with fame and notoriety that means any experiment will be called a success, expanded "her" work into directions that are designed to stimulate the funny bone or the heartstrings a lot more than her original target, the good old brain.

1 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Let The Truth Be Told, October 8, 2006

By 

Theseus "theseus" (US of A) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jane Martin: Collected Plays, Vol. 2: 1996-2001 (Paperback)

"Jane Martyne's" plays were wrytten by the Duke of Oxford.

But, really, I heart Jane Martin playwrighting.