Customer Reviews

Six Degrees of Separation: A Play

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Based on the true story of a wealthy, well-meaning liberal couple in the upper echelons of New York society's upper crust, we have Flan or Flanders Kittredge and his wife Ouisa or Louisa; the former is a standoffish but deep down good-hearted art dealer in the private sector who has a penchant for the works of Kandinsky and Cezanne; the latter is his wife, articulate and intelligent who is in need of something of greater meaning and depth other than money, art, fancy restaurants and wealthy friends.

And so the evening commences with a friend from South Africa; they are discussing poverty, the downtrodden and the oppressed, overblown intellectual banter to elevate the ego and make the evening progress smoothly and divinely. But the night is anything but that, for it is dramatically interrupted by Paul - a young black homosexual flimflammer or Peter Funk man with a penchant for male street hustlers (only when he is happy - his words). He comes into the lives of these two unwitting victims after stabbing and passing himself off as a friend to their children who are at Harvard. And what else does her profess? You guessed it - that he is the son of you-know-who: Academy Award winner Sidney Poitier, the most eminent black actor of his generation, the hero that has been the catalyst for the lives of these socially and politically 'aware' forty-somethings.

Paul charms and bedazzles himself into the lives of those he encounters, using his wit, knowledge, ease and most importantly, his race, more specifically, Sidney Poitier's name. As the play intensifies, Paul promises the Kittredge's and future unsuspecting victims minor roles in the movie version of Cats, for which his 'father' is purportedly directing. The victims salivate over the prospect of being in a Poitier film, and they let their guards down, for their humdrum existence now has that depth and meaning that was missing at the beginning of the play; it has that structure that their kids, their careers, their money and their friends could not provide. It has a purpose. An assumed black actor's son is mugged in Central Park. And the kind Kittredges help him out. When life is not all that we want it to be, it is easy to have the wool pulled over our eyes. We believe because we want to believe. That is the meat of this play.

This play is complex because of the issues that are addressed; it is not just about race and economics, but it is about the purpose of existance in life. This work evolves and reveals so many layers, layers that are eventually reached, and thus, a truer gift of insight gained. Ironically, in the environment of the wealthy elite and the established intelligentsia, it was a sharpie who made this couple and others similar to them see the gift that life and living really is.

John Guare has created a witty, creative, funny, and tragic play with his SIX DEGREES OF SEPERATION, based upon the true story of a wealthy Manhattan couple who are fooled into allowing a con-man who claims to be a friend of their Harvard children, and the son of actor Sideny Potier into their home. Paul, the con-man in question, is a homosexual who has previously seduced a lover into telling him secrets about people in this upper-class Manahatten community. Paul even goes so far as to stabbing himself and claiming that he was mugged for his briefcase.

Mr. guare has adapted this story to the playbook with astoinding creativity and brilliance. His characters grow and learn with each passing scene. Mr. Guare is an incredible author who has built a beautiful world on the stage. I can't imagine how wonderful a sight this must be when seen live. SIX DEGREES OF SEPERATION is essential when studying or performing modern theater. Nothing this decade has stood out as much as this play.

this is a brilliant play and the movie adaption goes by the screenplay almost word-for-word, scene-by-scene. it is about many things, primarily dealing with the nature of social role. but you'll find more than that, you'll find issues in meaning, art, color, dreams, all wrapped up into what can be seen as a social commentary.

I was introduced to this play about a month ago when I was cast in the role of Kitty, a friend of the Kitteredges. Intending to only skim the script and hilight my lines, I read the entire play in one sitting. From the opening scene to the closing, I felt like I was being included in the characters' experiences.
The characters' personalities are also quite deep. After the first couple of times that I read through the script, I realized that there was so much more to the characters than what was written on the page. Guare does a wonderful job of letting the reader use his imagination and create his own backgrounds and deeper personalities for the characters.
This play is an intellectual-artsy type for those who are willing to examine their trust for strangers.

A wonderful play based on an actual event. Right up there with Equus and Arcadia in quality and depth. Strongly written, but also deftly written. I had the opportunity to see it performed (twice) with Stockard Channing (also in the movie version - which was good, but not exceptional) and Courtney B. Vance (@ Lincoln Center). Definitely read it. Even more definitely - go see it performed if you can.

Maybe its me, but where did the concept of six degrees of separation come in? That being said, I enjoyed the pacing and language of this play, and the characters were strong and fleshed out. A good, fast-paced read.

I forgot to write this review, but this is an amazing play. I read it and re-read it after I received it. This copy seemed as if if came straight from the printer, thats how new it was

After reading a book about the Oscars, I decided to seek out books that were made into films, and I came across Guare's now-famous play that was produced on Broadway in the 1990s and eventually made into a film starring Will Smith and Stockard Channing. A young black man, feigning injury, insinuates himself into the lives of art dealer Flan Kitteredge and his wife, Ouisa. He claims to have known their kids at college and also claims to be Sidney Poitier's son. They have a wildly fascinating conversation during their first meeting, but after inviting him to stay the night, they discover him in bed with a male hustler. Then Ouisa and Flan discover the con: other friends of theirs have also had run-ins with this man, Paul, and his lies eventually lead to tragedy.

Ouisa gives the play's best and most famous monologue in which she talks about their being six degrees of separation from every individual on the planet. Performed as a play, it's only about 90 minutes long, but those minutes are filled with seamlessly joined dialogue between well-rounded characters who seem to leap off the page.

Loosely based upon real events, SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION is a dramatic comedy that explores the deep interconnectivity of people while at the same time illustrating how shallow our quest for fame and fortune often is. The play tells the story of Flan and Ouisa Kittredge, an upper class Manhattan couple. The Kittredges are art dealers, but they've about run out of funds and unless they sell something soon, they might have to downgrade their lifestyle. One evening while they are having a friend from South Africa over for dinner (and trying to get some money from him), a young black man appears on their doorstep. He claims to have been mugged in Central Park and that he is a college friend of their kids. The initial tension soon dissolves when Paul, the young black man, begins cooking them dinner and lets slip that his father is Sidney Poitier. Paul makes everyone feel better about themselves and the Kittredges agree to let Paul spend the night in their apartment. However, things begin to unravel when the Kittredges find Paul having sex with a man the next morning. They throw Paul out and they think that's the end of it until later they learn of acquaintances who have been duped by Paul in similar ways. Thus begins a quest to find out who Paul really is and in doing so the Kittredges discover themselves.

I think SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION is a great play. Most of the characters are pretentious and snobbish and at times not very likeable. However, they have no idea that they are pretentious, they think they are charming, and very likeable. The irony is that it takes a con man who no one really knows to help them take their own masks off and truly see themselves for the first time.

Even if the plot of the play doesn't sound interesting, the play is worth reading and knowing about because of introducing the concept of "six degrees of separation" into the lexicon. The concept had existed before, but only in vague terms. It wasn't until John Guare's play that the idea became commonplace and a part of American culture.

Overall, a fairly entertaining and thought-provoking play that anyone with an interest in American theatre should read.

John Guare's "Six Degrees of Separation" is about the foibles of a New York City couple named Flanders and Louisa Kittredge, who go by the nicknames Flan and Ouisa. They are a pretentious pair desperate to make a deal with a wealthy South African to keep them in their swank lifestyle when a black man named Paul barges into their lives and cons his way into an invitation to stay the night. Because Paul is charming and intellectual -- flattering Flan and Ouisa to their heart's content -- they become easy dupes, totally shocked when they wake in the morning to find that Paul had invited a male hustler into his bed while they slept. There are touches of liberal guilt in how easily Flan and Ouisa are deceived in that they are fairly patronizing to Paul as a young black man who has (seemingly) been mugged and left penniless until his father gets into town the next morning. But the truth is that the Kittredges are not taken in by their guilt but by the promise that they can get something out of their association with Paul. He claims that the father he is waiting for is none other than Sidney Poitier, coming to NYC to cast for his upcoming film adaptation of "Cats" -- and that he can get them roles as extras to repay their kindness. That is Paul's modus operandi (it turns out that he has also conned several of Ouisa and Flan's friends in the same fashion). He promises his marks a connection to a higher level of society that they aspire to. For Ouisa, Flan et al this means the world of celebrity, but for Rick and Elizabeth (the poor couple Paul turns to when his mugged-son-of-Poitier shtick won't work anymore) it is access to the upper east side world that the Kittredges inhabit. Eventually Paul's relentless conning has tragic consequences, and it feels typical of this play's mindset that the tragedy happens to the lower-class characters while the upper-crust ones hover above it all. But the main fault of Guare's play is that the characters are so uniformly unappealing. They are all pretentious (a word that just about sums up the play) and unlikable cartoons lacking in depth or realism. The parents abysmally ignore their college-aged children, who lavishly act out in retaliation, and they all just feel like stereotypes instead of relatable people you might actually meet in the real world. This is not to say that the play is without merit. It's now famous concept that everyone in the world is connected by a mere six people is intriguing, as are its questions regarding race and class distinctions. The question of how far a person is willing to go to break into the upper echelons of society is also a good one. But what I found most intriguing was when Ouisa, wondering why Paul went to such great lengths to gain access to their lives, commented that "We're not enough to be envied." Can anyone ever be happy with what they have when someone else will always have more? All in all I found "Six Degrees of Separation" to be a mixed bag with some good points muddled by weak characters.