Pride's Crossing [Paperback]

Tina Howe (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1998

The latest work by the award-winning author of Coastal Disturbances and The Art of Dining.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Howe has always been a graceful playwright, adept at dialogue and capable of finding the drama in even the most mundane moments. But rarely has her previous work exhibited the emotional depth and power she displays in Pride's Crossing. The play is a double portrait of 90-year-old Mabel Tiding Bigelow--the first woman to swim the English Channel from England to France (the harder way to swim the channel), who now lives, alone and feisty, in the house in which she grew up--and of the upper-class social milieu, circa 1917^-28, in which she was raised. In the play, Howe leaps back and forth in time with the agility of someone full of memories but still cognizant of the present, encapsulating Bigelow's life in a handful of short, inspired scenes and showing us both where she triumphed and where she allowed traditions and mores to hem her in and keep her from a life she might have loved. Jack Helbig

About the Author

Tina Howe was born in New York City, where she currently resides and teaches at Hunter College. Her major honors include an Outer Critics Circle Award, a Rockefeller grant, an NEA fellowship, a Guggenheim fellowship, an Obie Award for Distinguished Playwriting, and a Tony nomination for her play "Coastal Disturbances."

Product Details

• Paperback: 112 pages
• Publisher: Theatre Communications Group (April 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1559361530
• ISBN-13: 978-1559361538
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #456,106 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A woman's life, a century, wise & sad, September 11, 2000

By 

Kathleen Warnock "kwnyc" (NY, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pride's Crossing (Paperback)

Well, I think you should read the play if you're going to review it. I mean, that is the point of a BOOK review, isn't it?

I both saw and read it, and onstage, one couldn't help but be exhilarated by the performance of Cherry Jones, one of our great American actresses. I saw an early version of the play in San Diego, then the slightly rewritten version in New York, and thought the changes made the piece stronger.

Tina Howe's voice and vision are spectacular here. Most people ignore her early, surrealist, work, and think of her as the female AR Gurney...writing about loopy wasps, such as in Painting Churches and The Art of Dining.

For those who know the early work (Birth and Afterbirth, The Nest), and who have followed her path in the last few years (prior to Pride's Crossing, she wrote One Shoe Off, which was a challenging and dangerous adult play, with more in common with Albee than Gurney), the play will fit in with themes she has explored and pondered for three decades or so.

A memory play, the 'present' is the life of the 90-something Mabel Tydings Bigelow, who swam the English channel in the 1920s. Her memory takes her back to her childhood, and the triumph of her youth, bucking the disapproval of her mother, and being ignored by her brothers, marrying a wastrel, and leaving the man she truly loved.

I sometimes wonder at the backlash at plays that focus on women and their lives, as they they aren't "important" enough to merit serious critical consideration. It seems to me it's a function of the sexism still inherent in the critical community, and while we've come a long way since the early 1900s, there are still many barriers yet to be broken down.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't read the play, PERFORM IT!, May 12, 2001

By 

Zachary Stern (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pride's Crossing (Paperback)

The first time I read this script, I thought it would not be a good play at all. However, my school then put the play on, and I had the part of Frazier. Not only was it the most amazing experience of my life, I began to truly realize the amazing depth and excellence of this script. It is aboslutley amazing if directed well.

0 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Heavy hand, April 17, 2000

By 

brassawe (Cedar Rapids, IA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pride's Crossing (Paperback)

This is a play where the message was conceived first, and the play and characters were constructed around it. The result is a heavy handed didactic piece. One can endure heavy handedness, however, if the teaching is other than banal. In the case of this play, one only endures.