11/14/2025 From the Bookshelf: DPS Broadway Book Club Collection # 13
THE MORE (YOU THINK) YOU KNOW
Thank you for joining me for a deep (ish) dive into seven more scripts from the Dramatists Play Service Book Club. This quarter, the curator is Jonathan Spector, playwright of the 2025 Tony-winning revival, Eureka Day, which had a memorable 2020 COVID-Zoom reading from Alanta’s Theatrical Outfit (see our review here). This collection was (mostly) new titles for me, with two exceptions (one that was produced in Atlanta, another that was adapted into an oddly memorable film).
OTOH, all seven plays can be (maybe with a mental push or two) gathered under a unifying theme – we don’t always know what we think we know and sometimes what we blindly refuse to know can bite us on the rump. Let this motif be the backbone of each of these thumbnail reactions!
(To paraphrase the same words I copy/paste every time I collect these sketches, 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 in advance, opening each box is like opening a giftbox!)
THIS MUCH I KNOW
By Jonathan Spector
Originally Produced by Aurora Theater, Berkely CA, September 2022
Produced by Theatre J, Washington DC, February 2024
DC Production transferred to 59E59 Theatre New York City September / October 2025
(Read the New York Times review of the NYC production HERE)
Curator Spector here fully embraces the theme of Cognitive Biases (especially Confirmation Bias) in an intricate tapestry of two interlocking stories – a university lecturer confronts his own blind spots as his wife abandons their sterile marriage in order to research her family’s connection to Stalin’s daughter (Svetlana Alliluyeva); meanwhile, he mentors a pariah of a student whose family is heavily invested in White Nationalism. Three actors play a plethora of characters, sometimes switching in mid-line, whose connections are put under the lens of differing paradigms and expectations. All characters (historical and otherwise) live (and think) according to what they think they know, and all are in equal parts compellingly correct and painfully misguided.
This play was a bit of a challenge to read, as the characters speak in a wide range of carefully constructed dialects with much of the subtext (right or wrong) left ambivalent. I still found it surprisingly effective (at least on my second read). Suffice it to say, in performance, this promises to be a highly effective look at the emotional tricks our minds can play, and a subtle critique of the social media bubbles that tend to feed our own misconceptions and prejudices, and that form the spine(lessness) of contemporary politics.
GET WHAT YOU NEED
By Jessica Goldberg
(No Productions cited in the Script. Published 2000)
This is a vivid (and criminally under-produced) look at the American Dream – What we think we want, what we thought we achieved, what our true priorities are. In 1979, Joni and Eddie are struggling with a young daughter with painfully debilitating allergies and an exchequer cut razor-close to the bone by bad choices and high healthcare costs. When a college friend visits with an offer that would satisfy their dreams, they may (just may) either get everything they want or merely feed Eddie’s gambling addiction. Twenty-five years later, they may (just may) have achieved their dream. What was the cost? What was the secret that throbs between them like a cancerous growth? What did it cost their (now adult and healthy) daughter? And have they transferred the care-giving that defined their younger selves from their daughter to Joni’s dementia-addled mother? Ms. Goldberg (creator of Hulu’s The Path and showrunner for Netflix’s Away) has constructed a brilliant piece that both moves and amuses, filled with dialogue that snaps and burns. She has also breathed remarkable life into three characters we may recognize, fashioning a compelling chronicle of the evolution of the Boomer Generation. (That I was also in my late twenties in 1979 has absolutely – ahem – nothing to do with my empathetic response to them.)
CAUGHT
By Christopher Chen
Originally Produced by InterAct Theatre, Philadelphia, November 2014
New York Premiere by the Play Company at La MaMa, August 2016
(Read the WHYY review of the Philadelphia production HERE)
(Read the New York Times review of the La Mama production HERE)
This is a brilliant puzzle box of a play that uses form and content to examine the nature of truth and art and theatre and journalism and appropriation and cultural stereotyping and … and … and …... The audience enters a pop-up art exhibit of the works of dissident Chinese artist Lin Bo. The pre-show smoothly segues into a lecture by the artist in which he describes his imprisonment and torture by the Chinese government for the high crime of pretending to make art about the Tiananmen Square massacre. Only …. Well, maybe some of the opening lecture just may be slightly (or not so slightly) removed from accuracy, but durned if he doesn’t make us believe it! As he makes a journalist believe it until his claims are fact-checked. OTOH, we may just be watching/reading a play that looks like a pop-up art exhibit that segues into a magazine editor’s office that segues into ---- Well, before too long we’re so stuck on wondering what is real and what is not that we may as well have our minds trapped in one of those finger-puzzles we loved as a kid.
This was a total joy to read, a total joy to experience, and a total wallow in thinking what I think I’m led to believe even when I’m being told to not believe it. More to the point, it is backhanded nod to the harsh truth that today’s politics are driven by story – even something that is an outrageously bald-faced lie will be accepted if it is wrapped in a compelling story.
IN THE WAKE
By Lisa Kron
Originally Produced at the Public Theatre, NYC, November 2010
(Read the New York Times review of the Public Theatre production HERE)
This one opens with a family Thanksgiving gathering in 2000 as the Florida Bush/Gore election results are still up in the air. Ms. Kron serves us an expansive look of at early 21st-Century politics through the lens of a group of friends who fail to acknowledge their “blind spots”-- in this case, the stridencies and judgments that hurt the ones they love the most, even if – especially when – they are totally deaf to those hurts.
Ellen and Danny are a long-term couple who steadfastly refuse to marry – or at least she refuses. Danny’s sister and her partner live in the same New York apartment and are always hanging out. Ellen’s best friend is an older woman who has “given up” on optimism and the American Dream. And Amy is a young woman with whom Ellen connects at a basic physical and emotional level, even with Danny’s blessing, which, of course, may or may not be sincere.
Covering the five years between the Bush v. Gore decision and Hurricane Katrina this is as a clear a portrait of the liberal mindset of that era as I have read, idealism and blind spots compellingly familiar. It is filled with laughter and spats and loss and self-reflection, indeed all the eddies and flows of long-term family/friend integration; it allows us to watch as friends and lovers leave our lives, sometimes with our consent, even encouragement.
Ms. Kron (101 Humiliating Stories, Fun Home) is a playwright I’ve admired for quite some time, and this piece is as good as anything of hers I’ve read.
THE DESIGNATED MOURNER
By Wallace Shawn
First Produced by the Royal National Theatre, London, England April 1996
American premier at Steppenwolf Theatre Co, Chicago, IL March 1997
London Production adapted to Film, May 1997
(Read the New York Times review of 2013 Revival production HERE)
(Read the Roger Ebert review of the 1997 film HERE)
In an unknown land teetering on Authoritarianism, three artistic intellectuals talk directly to us, interweaving monologues about their lives and philosophy and politics and art and the dangers they pose to authoritarians. Jack is married to Judy who is Howard’s daughter. All are members of that university class of intellectuals who analyze everyone and everything, who come across as pedantic and pretentious to those of us who haven’t read John Donne since college. All also display petty grievances and rivalries about those not of their particular group. Two are swept up and swallowed by the political turmoil, leaving one to be the “designated mourner” for art and intellectualism, the last person who has read (or even recognizes the name of) John Donne.
And it answers the old question, does art really matter to society and our lives, or would we be better off (if not happier) without it?
I saw the 1997 film way back in, well, 1997, and was overwhelmed by it. Yes, the movie is basically 90 minutes of talking heads speaking directly to the camera (Mike Nichols and Miranda Richardeon playing Jack and Judy), but Shawn’s language, the portrait these monologues create in my imagination, the devasting impact of loss and ennui, made me want to see it again and again. Which, of course, I never got the opportunity to do.
So reading the play now (many years and many political seesaws later) is more than a mere confirmation of my initial regard for the film, it is an unfortunate echo of contemporary politics and I REALLY need to see the film again (I will be buying it in DVD format from Amazon – the only way to see it these days since it’s not streaming anywhere). The three characters are alive on the page, even as they spiral into the maelstrom of Shawn’s invented future history. And it speaks volumes about our current politics v. arts ethos. To paraphrase Mr. Shawn’s line from one of his more popular roles, it is inconceivable that this isn’t more widely known and produced.
SMALL MOUTH SOUNDS
By Beth Wohl
First Produced by Ars Nova, NYC, March 2015
Atlanta Production at Alliance Theatre October 2019
(Read Our Review of the Atlanta Production HERE)
(Read the New York Times review of the Ars Nova production HERE)
Six damaged adults (and an offstage teacher) gather in the woods for a retreat to “center” themselves with silence. Which begs the question, just how do you write a script that has little dialogue? Well, it helps that playwright Wohl has written long and detailed character descriptions, back story that may (but usually does not) find its way into the script, that totally SHOULD find its way into the actors’ subtext. (The Alliance production included these descriptions as lobby displays). This script is a compelling read, Ms. Wohl’s characters and conflicts coming alive, even without the benefit of much dialogue.
Having really loved the Alliance production, this was the first script I read out of the box and it was a great way to start this wallow in script-philia. I still find solace in silence – my daily walks are an exercise in letting my mind run unassisted by music or podcast or book-on-tape, wallowing instead in ambient and natural sound – so, in spite of my skepticism of the process on display here (and its mixed results with the characters), I cannot help but enjoy the validation of those (countless) moments of silence that deafen my life.
If you saw (and enjoyed) the Alliance production, this script is well worth a visit.
THE COMEUPPANCE
By Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
First Produced by Signature Theatre, NYC, June 2023
(Read the New York Times review of the Signature Theatre production HERE)
(Read the New Yorker review of the Signature Theatre production HERE)
Playwright Jacobs-Jenkins (Appropriate, Everybody) plumbs the tropes of movies like The Big Chill and Return of the Secaucus Seven to paint a portrait of an era shared by a group of friends as they gather for a reunion. This is the Millennial Generation whose high school years were bookended by Columbine and 9/11. It is time for their 20th high school reunion and they have gathered for a “pre-reunion reunion,” a self-described club known as M.E.R.G.E. (Multi-Ethnic Reject Group). Now, post-COVID, they have grown apart, in distance and in politics. They are now approaching middle age and struggling with all the ills of long-term adulthood – PTSD, divorce, diabetes-driven blindness, parenthood (and an excessive number of children), grief and loss, and the ennui that comes with all those “what have I done with my life” regrets.
And yet, when they get together, all their old juvenile games and regrets and grudges and affections come to life as if they’ve never been apart. They soon discover, though, that what they thought they knew about each other was misinformation entrenched by years of faulty memory. It’s noteworthy that their collective memories are often at odds, even contradictory (which, of course, syncs nicely with the motif I’ve found among these seven scripts).
Will there be a comeuppance for sins past and present? Well, let’s just say Death is a character here, and every character gets to embody Death, who is our friendly (and strangely charismatic) host for the evening, as He(*) talks to us about the trials of His job and why He likes visiting us all. Which, of course, means that each actor gets to play two characters, with each making us believe Death is the same character no matter who He is “inhabiting.”
I really loved this play, with its strong (if too often irritating) characters, its celebration of the ties that bind young friends and “unbind” them as they separate and age and meet new people, its ddeply rotted wit and humor (too often shadowed by pathos), and its devasting final moments, which I love for you to discover. My favorite script of this collection!.
(* Yes, since Death is played by both male and female actors, I should use the generic “they” pronoun, but I decided to use the capitalized (godlike) “He” for clarity.)
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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 #DramatistsPlayService