Fantasies at the Frick or the Guard and the Guardess : a Play in Two Acts [Samuel French Edition of the Script, Play, Staged Play guide]

Melfi, Leonard

ISBN 10: 0573608784 / ISBN 13: 9780573608780

Published by Samuel French, Inc 1980 0, 1980

About this Item

83 pages. Softcover play script in used but complete condition. Light age toning, some corner wear and faint marks to covers, interior generally clean with minor page browning and a few water stains spots. Binding sound and all text fully legible. First acting edition. -- This edition presents Fantasies at the Frick (or The Guard and the Guardess) - a two-act play by Leonard Melfi (1932-2001), one of the most distinctive voices of New York's Off-Off-Broadway movement. Set entirely inside the Frick Museum in Manhattan, the play stages an encounter between a nervous new guard and a veteran female colleague as they confront eccentric visitors, romantic tension, and the surreal quiet of the galleries. Melfi's script blurs reality and imagination, turning the stillness of the museum into a space of desire, absurdity, and revelation. -- Premiered at Open Space in SoHo, New York City, in 1976, the production typified the experimental downtown scene that Melfi helped shape at La Mama and Caffe Cino - incubators of American avant-garde theater. He was also a contributor to Oh! Calcutta! and wrote numerous one-acts performed by major actors including Al Pacino and Shelley Winters. His works capture 1970s urban disquiet and sensual humor with compassion for the overlooked and the odd. -- Though modest in format, this Samuel French acting edition is now scarce and sought mainly by collectors of American theater, performance studies, or New York cultural history. It connects directly to the Frick Museum's own pop-culture footprint - an unusual meeting of fine-art space and off-beat stage imagination. -- An authentic relic of late-20th-century Off-Off-Broadway literature, and a valuable resource for students of Melfi, directors seeking rediscovered two-character plays, or curators tracing the cross-currents between visual and performance art.

Seller Inventory # 5001678

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Fantasies at the Frick or the Guard and the Guardess : a Play in Two Acts [Samuel French Edition of the Script, Play, Staged Play guide]
• Publisher: Samuel French, Inc 1980 0
• Publication Date: 1980
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0573608784
• ISBN 13: 9780573608780
• Binding: Paperback, folded chapbook
• Condition: Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: No Dust Jacket
• Book Type: Book
• Seller catalogs:
  • Rare + Collectible + Antique Books
  • Fiction + Novels + Short Stories
  • Collectible Books + Rare Books

About this title

Synopsis

Book by Melfi, Leonard