The Oberon Anthology of Contemporary American Plays

Volume One

Bathsheba Doran, Will Eno, Itamar Moses, Jenny Schwartz, Mark Subias

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781849431538
• eBook ISBN: 9781849436182
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

This new series brings together some of the best new writing from contemporary American playwrights. Volume One is introduced by Andre Bishop, Artistic Director of the Lincoln CenterTheater, the most prestigious theatre in the USA. Each play is introduced by critically acclaimed writers themselves. The volume includes: KIN by Bathsheba Doran, (with an introduction by Chris Durang) Kin sheds a sharp light on the changing face of kinship in the expansive landscape of the modern world. 'Simply terrific. Perhaps the finest new play of the season. Funny andaudacious, haunting, and exquisitely wrought.'Charles Isherwood, New York Times MIDDLETOWN by Will Eno (with an introduction by Gordon Lish) Middletown was awarded the prestigious Horton Foote Prize for Promising New American Play in 2010. 'Middletown glimmers from start to finish with tart, funny, gorgeous little comments on big things: the need for love and forgiveness, the search for meaning in life, the long, lonely ache of disappointment.' Charles Isherwood, New York Times COMPLETENESS by Itamar Moses (with an introduction by Doug Wright) Completeness is a 21st-century romantic comedy about the timeless confusions of love. 'A funny, ridiculously smart new play. I haven't seen another play recentlythat so perfectly captured love – hot-blooded, fearless, fi ckle – at this stagein life. I was left with nothing but admiration.'Jeremy Gerard, Bloomberg News GOD'S EAR by Jenny Schwartz (with an introduction by Edward Albee) 'This ode to love, loss and the routines of life has the economy and drywit of a Sondheim love song … Schwartz is a real talent and she is trying something ambitious … In [her] very modern way, [she is] making a rather old-fashioned case for the power of the written word.'Jason Zinoman, New York Times

THE WRITER’S EAR

Whenever somebody tells me that there is an extraordinary new play being performed and I should see it, I make plans to do so – but only after having obtained a copy of the play so that I can read it before I see it, and certainly before I read reviews of it.

My reasoning is simple: I would rather form my judgment of the play’s worth before I am subjected to the secondhand of a director’s interpretation, and certainly before my objectivity is clouded by a critic’s opinion. In other words, I want to experience the piece as the author intended, and take my chances.

This usually works out just fine. I have seen so many splendid plays damaged by misunderstanding productions – commercializations, say, or willful distortions brought about by the assumption that a director’s vision of a text must be clearer than the instigators’. And, conversely, I have seen not a few mediocre (or worse!) scripts jazzed by a skillful director to give the illusion of a quality unsupported by text. I make the assumption that firsthand experience is firsthand and all else is not.

(I am so envious at a concert when I see people reading the score during performance of a piece; they are able to experience the intention and its variants simultaneously.)

* * *

Now and again, however, my way is not the best way to first experience a play, and this is the case with God’s Ear by Jenny Schwartz.

Now, God’s Ear is a very fine play; it is fully three-dimensional; it is fully informative and both moving and deeply funny, and its comedic and tragic values nudge each other so positively that they create a reality not always present in constructed fictions.

I saw God’s Ear before I read it, how...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half-title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• KIN by Bathsheba Doran
• Introduction to Kin by Christopher Durang
• MIDDLETOWN by Will Eno
• Introduction to Middletown by Gordon Lish
• COMPLETENESS by Itamar Moses
• Itamar and Me by Doug Wright
• GOD’S EAR by Jenny Schwartz
• The Writer’s Ear by Edward Albee