Word: wanda
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...leading member of this crew is Israel Horovitz, who wrote The Indian Wants The Bronx, and now Line. Other playwrights with a similar tenor of mind are John Guare (CopOut, The House of Blue Leaves), Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Happy Birthday, Wanda June), and Jules Feiffer (Little Murders, The White House Murder Case). In a sense, they are all cartoonists (as Feiffer actually is), commenting on life, but never really bringing life to birth on the stage. They all write rather like Madison Avenue dropouts, reaching for the zingy zany line that will somehow sell their intrinsically pessimistic little packages. They...
...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...
...Vonnegut's forte, and the jawbone is his only weapon. Fortunately, it seems to be the funniest bone in his body. His sense of the absurdity of existence is quite antic and acute, though prevailingly collegiate, as epitomized in his title which features an innocent and irrelevant mite, Wanda June (Ariane Munker), who has been translated into heaven by a homicidal ice cream truck. In the role of the anti-hero hero, Kevin McCarthy is splendid. McCarthy has always been an actor with thought behind an ingratiating personality and imperishable good looks, and that is precisely what is needed...
...Cliffies are: Kathy Bowser '72, Donna Brown '73, Nancy Irving '73, Linda Jackson '73, Miss Lewis, Nancy Nabrit '72, Louise Reid '73, Sandrs Shelton '73, Wanda Williams '72, and Brenda Williamson...