9/5/2025 From the Bookshelf: DPS Broadway Book Club Collection # 12
FAMILY COMFORTS
For the Second Quarter Box o’ Scripts, DPS strayed from their usual practice of having an established playwright curate the collection, choosing instead to ask actress Annaleigh Ashford (Kinky Boots, You Can’t Take it With You, TV’s B Positive, many others) to take over that role. Ms. Ashford chose a veritable “comfort smorgasbord” of very familiar plays, most of which already rest within my getting-bigger-every-quarter cache of scripts, many of which enjoyed productions I (or my lovely and talented spouse) have been part of.
To be perfectly honest, it was a pleasant diversion. Sure, we all love discovering new works and playwrights, but there is something comforting about revisiting familiar scripts, plays we’ve seen (or done) often. For old farts like me, it’s a nostalgic wallow.
Two of Ms. Ashford’s selections were actually new to me, so I’ll discuss them first. As to the more familiar titles, they were all concerned (in one way or another) with family – loving families that bond, bitter families that rend with tooth and claw, families of blood and families of choice. I really enjoyed revisiting them all, and I hope you will enjoy my gentle reminders of their virtues.
(To repeat the same words I copy/paste every time I thumbnail these collections, for those late to the party, script publisher Dramatists Play Service runs a book club, where, once a quarter, they will deliver to your doorstep a box of scripts, curated by an established playwright, brimming with talent and creative life force. I look forward to every shipment as, to put it bluntly, I love reading scripts, even those for plays I know not and may never see brought to life on stage. Since the titles are unannounced, opening each box is like opening a giftbox!)
BELLA BELLA
By Harvey Fierstein
Originally Produced by Manhattan Theatre Club, NYC, October 2019
This is a delightful monologue about the life and career of New York’s Bella Abzug. It is the night of the start of her campaign to become New York’s first female senator, and she is hiding out in her New York Hotel’s bathroom. For the original production, playwright Fierstein played Ms. Abzug and ALL the people in her life, famous and not-so-famous. Yes, those of us who were alive at the time know the inevitable end of this campaign but experiencing all the hopes and fears and memories and grudges Ms. Abzug experienced getting to this point is downright exhilarating. In keeping with Ms. Ashford’s family theme, the cast of characters include Ms. Abzug’s husband, daughters, sister, and best friend.
PEOPLE. PLACES AND THINGS
By Duncan Macmillan
Originally Produced by Headlong Theatre and National Theatre (London) March 2016
Emma (is that even her real name?) is an actress addicted to drugs and alcohol. After a public meltdown while performing Chekhov’s The Seagull, she is forced into rehab, a treatment she has no desire to experience. (Apparently rehab is easy if you avoid all the people, places, and things that could trigger a relapse – you know, all of life as it were). The first half of this piece is a sketched-in-acid critique of the rehab industry, culminating in a full-blown rant and an invitation to go out drinking after the latest group session.
But then, Emma begins her journey into her past, her family, and the root causes of her addictions. This is a brilliantly conceived look at the role theatre can have on addiction recovery with a moving revelation of the family ties that feed addiction. It should be noted that Emma’s mother, therapist, and doctor are all played by the same actress, and there are some hallucinogenic scenes in which multiple versions of Emma appear on stage at the same time – now there’s a logistical challenge I’d love to see met!
BORN YESTERDAY
by Garson Kanin
Originally Produced at the Lyceum Theatre, NYC, February 1946
It’s been over 15 years since the Stage Door production – Isn’t it time for Atlanta to rediscover this gem?
Family Connection: Barbara Rudy played Billie Dawn in 1994 in Suburban Philadelphia
The classic “smart dumb blonde” comedy, with a sneaky feminist agenda, decades before that was a trend. Harry Brock is a rich and uncouth garbage tycoon come to Washington DC to buy himself some political influence. Accompanied by his mistress, the delightful Billie Dawn, he realizes she may be a hindrance to his corruption, so he hires a journalist to “teach her some couth.” She takes to learning and is soon on her way to “learning” she deserves better. Still uncomfortably relevant (maybe even more so these days) in its look at DC corruption and influence and its portrait of a rich bully who only sees what he wants to see.
You could do worse than streaming the 1950 movie version with Judy Holliday and William Holden or even the 1993 remake with Melanie Griifith, Don Johnson, and John Goodman.
SYLVIA
By A.R. Gurney
Originally Produced at Manhattan Theatre Club, NYC, May 1995
Very few seasons go by without at least one production in the Atlanta area
Family Connection: Barbara Rudy directed and I designed lights in 2005 at CenterStage North
A.R. Gurney's play is a comedy in which an actress plays the dog that slips into Greg and Kate's empty nest. She is a limpid-eyed beauty who steals Greg's heart and time and passion, leaving Kate in a WTF? cloud of dust. The humans have reached that stage of their long marriage in which "something new" turns them (well Kate) somewhat blue. For Greg and Sylvia, it's happily ever after. For Kate and Sylvia, it's no-holds-barred war.
Personally, I’ve never been that much of a “dog” person, so I’ve often found this one a bit contrived. But since our lovely little Papillon Cindy Lou entered our lives, I found myself sympathizing more with Greg and less with Kate. I’ve even (dare I say?) loved the last few productions I’ve seen, especially Stage Door’s 2015 production. Which is as good a reason as any to revisit old chestnuts you’ve “written off” more than once. I really enjoyed this reading, even the song break that seems to “stop the show cold” every time I see it. Almost every time. Maybe it just makes more sense on the printed page?
AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY
By Tracy Letts
First Produced at Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago, June 2007
Produced by the Alliance Theatre, April, 2011
Family Connection: Barbara Rudy played Barbara and I played Beverly in 2014 at Marietta Players
I have often written of this sketched-in-alcohol-and-resentment post-mortem on “family values” and always welcome a revisit, even if its just another script reading under the hot Florida sun. Poet and teacher Beverly Weston has disappeared. His daughters, all too close to middle age for comfort, descend on his rambling Oklahoma house to “support” his drug-addicted wife, Violet. Thus begins a red-in-tooth-and-claw battle for survival. For three acts, the Weston family pulls at the “ties that bind (and gag),” airing old hurts and creating new ones, picking at the scabs of long-submerged failings and wallowing in all the bitterness that only a lifetime of lies and hurts can establish.
Eldest daughter Barbara is fighting for control as she loses her husband to a younger woman and her daughter to dope and, um, other risky behaviors. Middle daughter Ivy, the one who remained “close to home,” is longing to finally scratch her way to a sort of freedom. Youngest daughter Karen has settled into an uneasy engagement to a sleaze-ball whose only redeeming quality is that he wants her. Add to the mix Violet’s sister Mattie Fae, who comes with her long-suffering husband, her browbeaten-to-catatonia son, and a purse-full of secrets all her own.
It's as if George and Martha from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf really did raise a family and taught them everything about the bloodsport of family life.
The 2014 movie version is also worth a look, if only to experience Meryl Streep’s breathtaking portrayal of Violet.
YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU
By Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman
First Produced at the Booth Theatre, NYC, December 1936
Revived in NYC in 2014/2015 with James Earl Jones and this collection’s curator, Annaleigh Ashford. Isn’t it time for a professional Atlanta Revival?
Family Connection: Barbara Rudy’s favorite Play (she has directed it often). I was in three productions, playing Ed in 1971 while in High School and again in 1985 at Harrisburg Community Theatre, then playing Paul in 2010 at Blackwell Playhouse.
The polar opposite of August: Osage County, a sketched-in-rosebuds comic portrait of a happy family. Welcome to the Sycamore home! A life-loving collection of eccentrics, the Sycamores pursue whatever passion is of the moment, regardless of ability or affect, and have a darn good time in the process. But, when daughter Alice wants to marry financial heir Tony Kirby, can the budding romance survive the inevitable family clash?
This play is a perennial favorite of community theatres as well as with High School and youth groups. It provides a gaggle of opportunities to create off-center and memorable characters, as well as a classic exercise in ensemble performing. The Sycamores are such a delightfully off-beat crew and everyone gets a chance to shine. As to all the visitors and guests that come their way, well, to paraphrase the late John Wayne, you can tell what they’re like by the number of times they blink when they encounter the household.
Nicely constructed by the playwrights, the play is grounded by the character of Grandpa Vanderhof. A bit off in his own right, he nevertheless provides the focus and common-sense wisdom around which the whole family rotates.
This is also one of my favorite plays, and I have no problem re-visiting it as often as possible!
THE GLASS MENAGERIE
By Tennessee Williams
First Produced at the Playhouse Theatre, NYC, March 1945
Numerous Atlanta Productions, including Georgia Shakespeare (2011), Stage Door Players (2020), and AuthentiCity Theatre (2024)
Family Connection: I designed (and ran) sound in 1998 for Puttin’ on the Ritz Theatre, Haddon Township NJ
Memory has a way of smothering us in its comfort-blanket embrace of rose-colored assurances even as it deceives us with its lost details, its manufactured incidents, and its pleasing fallacies. They say there is no consciousness without memory, no memory of early years before consciousness. What does it say about us when the core of who we are may be (and usually is) a blatant lie?
The Glass Menagerie is arguably Tennessee Williams’ most well-known “Memory Play.” In it, he attempts an exorcism of his own memories of his mother, his sister, and his youth in St. Louis. Tom Wingfield is telling us his memory of his final days living in that tenement that may or may not resemble Williams’ own. His memory is filtered, biased, and selective as he tells us of his overly eccentric mother Amanda and his crippled and shy sister Laura, of the “Gentleman Caller” who was supposed to pull Laura out of her fragile solitude, tells us of the circumstances that shattered forever the memory of hearth and home and family.
Like all memories, Tom’s ebbs and flows with detail, sometimes fuzzy and unfocused, other times sharp and clear. It is through Williams’ genius that these ebbs and flows transfer into a workable dramatic framework, that what we see is inalterably “infected” with Tom’s feelings – his mother a bit too jagged, his sister a bit too fragile. And we accept the conventions, because, at their root, are the very real emotions Tom will always carry. His story conveys all too realistically the emotional upheavals and consequences of the choices he made and regrets.
How often have we read or seen this always memorable play, this portrait of a family unique in its eccentricity, recognizable in its fragility? Considering how many new subtexts arose this time, how many memories of past productions come to mind as Williams’ words coursed through my consciousness, one more reading is always not enough..
I hope you get a chance to check out any (or all) of these plays and hope you find them as satisfying to read as I did. Better yet, I hope they create a desire to see them live on stage!
As usual, thank you for indulging my Bibliowallow! There will be more soon!
-- Brad Rudy (BKRudy@aol.com)
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