Word: yangness
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Written by Jeff Yang...
...Suite Dreams, Jeff Yang '89 acts on the misguided notion that turning California Suite, Simon's four-part laugh riot, into a shorter two-part comedy will add some missing dimension. Yang adds eight characters and connects two unrelated segments, but he can't keep his final product from reeking of Simonesque one-liners and contrived Love Boat-type situations. The hard-working cast simply cannot overcome the triteness of the dialogue...
Jenny ends up meeting another visitor, Marvin Michaels (Lee Thomson), at a party in honor of Michael's nephew. In a flash, she ends up in bed with him, and the rest of the play tries to untangle this plot twist, one of Yang's own touches...
Some of the few funny moments in Suite Dreams also turn out to be Yang's inventions. For instance, a lamentable bellhop at the hotel (well-played by Blake Spraggins) always seems to have his itchy hand out for a non-existent tip. He later laments that "I should 'a listened to my wife and been a podiatrist" instead of staying with the "bellhop" trade...
...usual Harvard staples to look forward to: Shepard, Stoppard, Shakespeare and Sullivan (with Gilbert). Also ahead of us though are Cibula, Smith, Davenport and Yang--four undergraduate playwrights getting their scripts produced. These particular plays are difficult to classify, ranging from Sweet Sins, a drama about domestic violence to A Nite-Lite, which the Common Casting pamphlet describes only as, "Urban. Absurd. Harsh. Ludicrous. Surprising. Possible...