Word: vonnegut
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...only thing worse than an antiwar play is war. The current mode is for such plays to be written by laughing Cassandras, doomsday seers with quips on their lips. A couple of seasons ago there was Joseph Heller's We Bombed in New Haven; now there is Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s Happy Birthday, Wanda June. There is a strong temptation to say "Catch-23, please skiddoo...
...call these efforts plays is a massive overstatement. They offer nothing more than a two-hour supply of mouth froth, a dentifrice rather than a drama. Vonnegut's cute conceit has been to debunk the Ulysses myth in terms of the Hemingway legend. As Vonnegut sees it, war is a kind of priapic transplant for men whose sexual insecurity demands the bolstering arsenal of the sword, the gun, the hunt and the kill. As amateur psychologizing, that may be perfectly acceptable; as drama, it turns out to be perfectly dreadful...
...Vonnegut's address, the congregation was asked to rise. They filed solemnly past a table in an adjoining room, deposited their written offerings, and left in silence...
Except for one girl who stopped to ask Vonnegut for his autograph...
...meeting was scheduled for 2 p.m. Vonnegut entered the room at approximately 2:11. He stood in a dark recess, the only light coming from the tip of his cigarette and the flash bulbs reflected off his blue suit. His first words were, "Are all you people here for my course...