Orchards, Orchards, Orchards
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Orchards, Orchards, Orchards by Maria Irene Fornes
This collection includes seven short plays based on Anton Chekhov's short stories: THE MAN IN A CASE by Wendy Wasserstein, VINT by David Mamet, DROWNING by Maria Irene Fornes, A DOPEY FAIRY TALE by Michael Weller, EVE OF THE TRIAL by Samm-Art Williams, THE TALKING DOG by John Guare, and RIVKALA'S RING by Spalding Gray. The plays were commissioned by the Acting Company, and the volume is of particular interest to those concerned with both the short story and short play forms. Some of the plays are faithful adaptations of the original stories. Others take the original short stories as jumping off points and so are better characterized as loosely based on. In all, these are fascinating short works. THE MAN IN A CASE by Wendy Wasserstein: Varinka is a free spirit in love with the older Byelinkov, the most proper man in town. But his inhibitions and worries about how he and Varinka are perceived when she boldly rides a bicycle about town threatens to unravel their impending marriage. VINT by David Mamet: Mischievous bureaucrats play a card game (vint) using identity documents in their possession until they are caught redhanded. DROWNING by Maria Irene Fornes: A surrealist playlet in which a man performs suicides for a fee. A DOPEY FAIRY TALE by Michael Weller: A spoof fairy tale about a boy and his talking dog, Chatter, who go on a magical journey to recover his lost talent. EVE OF THE TRIAL by Samm-Art Williams: Set in Baton Rouge in 1919, the defendant of a criminal trial meets the judge who, unbeknownst to him, is to try him the following day. THE TALKING DOG by John Guare: While hang gliding in the Catskills, a young woman wonders whether the young man in her company loves her. RIVKALA'S RING by Spalding Gray: Famously astute observer of everyday life, Spalding Gray receives a Chekhov short story in the mail, leading him into a monologue that confronts the fears that beset us. Take seven contemporary American playwrights with highly distinctive voices and wildly differing approaches to the theater. Ask each to adapt one of Anton Chekhov's short stories, which range in mood from the melancholic to the satiric - and back again ... the results are incomparably delicious ... when ORCHARDS is good - which is most of the time - it is very, very good, indeed ... -Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun-Times The notion of asking seven contemporary playwrights to produce variations on themes by Anton Chekhov seems at first like asking for combination-platter theater ... All of the playwrights use Chekhov short stories for a springboard - but some have jumped so far into the deep end that it would be more accurate to say that they maybe looked at his picture while they were writing ... Whether you pick from Column A or Column B, ORCHARDS offers a superior menu. -Megan Rosenfeld, The Washington Post
Spalding Gray was born and raised in Rhode Island. A cofounder of the acclaimed New York City theater company the Wooster Group, he appeared on Broadway and in numerous films, including Roland Joffe's The Killing Fields, David Byrne's True Stories, Garry Marshall's Beaches, and as the subject of the 2010 Steven Soderbergh documentary, And Everything Is Going Fine. His monologues include Sex and Death to the Age 14, Swimming to Cambodia, Monster in a Box, Gray's Anatomy, and It's a Slippery Slope. He died in 2004.
Nell Casey is the editor of the national best seller Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression and An Uncertain Inheritance: Writers on Caring for Family, which won a Books for a Better Life Award. Her articles and essays have been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Slate, Elle, and Glamour, among other publications. Her fiction has been published in One Story. She is a founding member of Stories at the Moth, a nonprofit storytelling foundation. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children.
Nell Casey is the editor of the national best seller Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression and An Uncertain Inheritance: Writers on Caring for Family, which won a Books for a Better Life Award. Her articles and essays have been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Slate, Elle, and Glamour, among other publications. Her fiction has been published in One Story. She is a founding member of Stories at the Moth, a nonprofit storytelling foundation. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780881450552 |
| ISBN 10 | 0881450553 |
| Title | Orchards, Orchards, Orchards |
| Author | Maria Irene Fornes |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Broadway Play Publishing Inc.,U.S. |
| Year published | 1988-01-01 |
| Number of pages | 126 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |