Word: playwright
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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While the utter villainy of men in Dusa, Fish, Stas, and Vi is just a tad unrealistic, British playwright Pam Gems seems to be taking male depravity to an extreme in order to test out the weaknesses and strengths of her four female characters. This exaggerration causes us to question their actions. If men are so bad, why do these women permit men to treat them this way? Why do they keep coming back for more...
...year ago, Ken Howard was cozily encased in the arms of Diahann Carroll on the hit show "Dynasty." Currently, he plays the tormented Michael Trent, a playwright sifting through reams of nonsensical nuclear deterrence theories, in the ART's production of Arthur Kopit's "End of the World with Symposium to Follow...
...Playwright Janusz Glowacki, 48, understands these frustrations all too well. After his novel Give Us This Day, about the birth of Solidarity, was banned by the Polish censor in 1981, Glowacki arrived in the U.S. as a virtual unknown. Hunting Cockroaches, which opened off-Broadway last week, transmutes his struggles into vibrant farce devoid of self-pity. During an emblematic sleepless night, as nightmare figures ranging from an immigration officer to condescending liberals pop out from beneath their bed, the pragmatic couple never complain of life's unfairness. They accept having to prove themselves. They just wish it would...
...characters are named not as individuals, but as archetypes, each representing a different figure in the movement. There's the "Woman who writes plays," portrayed by playwright Sargent, who says she's writing the play even as it unfolds before us. She is joined by six other women representing a range of experiences: the single mother, the women's studies teacher, the anarchist, the anti-imperialist, the nun and the activist...
...from this kind of play, and any injustices done by the characters is minor compared to those suffered by them. The play's raucous tone often leaves us free to choose what to take seriously and what to read as self-parody anyway. This self-protective stance allows the playwright and her company to plead "just kidding" to any protestation, but it also drives home the absurdity of rigid sex roles and sexism...