Jane Martin: Collected Plays, Vol. 2: 1996-2001 - Softcover

Martin, Jane

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1575252724 ISBN 13: 9781575252728

Publisher: Smith & Kraus Pub Inc, 2001

Synopsis

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

About this title

About the Author

Jane Martin, a Kentuckian, first came to national attention for Talking With, a collection of monologues premiering in Actors Theatre of Louisville's 1981 Humana Festival of New American Plays. This play has been performed around the world, winning the Best Foreign Play of the Year award in Germany. Ms. Martin's other collected works include Vital Signs and What Mama Don't Know. Her full-length plays include Cementville, the Pulitzer nominated Keely and Du, which won the 1994 American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award, Criminal Hearts, and Middle Aged White Guys.

Reviews

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.

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

Edition details

• Publisher: Smith & Kraus Pub Inc
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1575252724
• ISBN 13: 9781575252728
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 274