Pulling Apart Pulitzer Prize-Winning Dramas

Description Do you want a senseless trivia fact? There are seven plays with an apostrophe in the title. Yup, I counted. I was curious; I knew the task would take less than a minute. Now I know. Sleep will come easy tonight. Anyways, Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman's play has proven to be quite a bang . . . pun . . . intended . . . Playbill.com summarizes the play like this: " An eccentric family allows each member to pursue his own ambition in the home, but their routine is disrupted when a daughter with a regular job wants to bring her fiancé and his Wall Street family to dinner in George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart's Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy." One of the pursuits is the creation of firework/dynamite sets. Family members test these fireworks in the house. And that is not the most definitively uproarious part of the play (except for, maybe it is . . .). The Sycamore family is an odd family with lovable quirks. The mother, Penelope, writes plays after being r...

Description Zona Gale became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama with her Miss Lulu Bett, which was the third winner of the prize. Female playwrights have received the prize in the following years: 1921 * ,   1931, 1935 * , 1945, 1956, 1958, 1981, 1983, 1989 * ,   1998, 1999, 2002, 2009, 2012, 2014 * , and 2017 (*indicates plays I've read thus far). That means only 16 out of 86 of these plays were written by women. That's a whopping 18.6%. Representation matters, and even "the most inclusive portion of entertainment" has not always recognized talent in diverse backgrounds. It amazes me to consider the content of Miss Lulu Bett, given the stats I just gave. Zona Gale classifies her play as an "American comedy of manners." The indication struck my eye, for such categorizations for some reason connote antiquity or an Anglican sophistication. Why? No clue. Gale writes an accessible, not-didactic play to challenge American society about ...

Description Eugene O'Neill's first full-length play serves as a wonderful entree to his magnum opus Long Day's Journey into Night . The two plays share much in common: fraternal spats, maternal heartache, and paternal pain. Quite frankly, I am amazed that this play has never seen a revival on Broadway. Sure, its plot is simple, but its emotional weight is grand. Set in an American farmland, the play spans eight years, which proves to be enough time for a full familial fallout to occur. I will spoil the plot, but not the ending. The play centers on the Mayo family. Brothers Andrew and Robert are opposites. Andrew is the farmer who plans to carry on the family name; Robert is the bookish dreamer who plans to explore what is beyond the horizon. Act One reveals that Robert is in love with Ruth Atkins, who he believes is in love with Andrew. She's not. When the two realize their mutual love, Robert decides to call off his sailing expedition with his uncle Dick Scott. A...

Description The billing of the show explains that this play "was suggested by Roark Bradford's Southern Sketches, 'Of Man Adam an' His Chillun'"   (xi). Connelly provides a wonderfully insightful Author's Note at the start of the play, which informs the audience that the play is "an attempt to present certain aspects of a living religion in the terms of its believers. The religion is that of thousands of Negroes in the deep South" (xv). Therefore, the play is to be read through a particular lens. The reader immediately understands the racial importance of the show when angels appear to enjoy a fish fry in heaven. Shortly thereafter, the story of Creation is rendered. The play includes hallmark biblical stories such as Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah, Moses, Joshua, and finally Hosea. Throughout the play, God grapples with the sinfulness of man and attempts to redirect mankind's heart toward holiness. He is perpetually disappointed in ma...

Description David Mamet packs  Glengarry Glen Ross with verbal spats, gritty game-playing, and obscene language. F-words bounce around the script endlessly as the characters express their unrest in their jobs. Playbill.com offers this synopsis of the play: " A group of Chicago real-estate salesman battle ruthlessly for the big deal in David Mamet's Pulitzer Prize-winning play."  The play is split into two acts: Act One contains three short conversations between various characters and Act Two is a showdown between all of them. The pacing remarkably distinguishes itself from other plays. Overlapping dialogue abounds in the play. Interestingly, the first act is notably shorter than the second act-- a break from traditional play-writing.  The characters include Richard Roma, Shelly Levene, George Aaronow, James Lingk, Dave Moss, Baylen, and John Williamson. The main conflict centers on the dog-eat-dog nature of real-estate agents. Bribery, intimidation, and burglary all...