What do you think?
Rate this book
Happy Birthday, Wanda June
In his first published play, Kurt Vonnegut finds a powerful vehicle for his tragicomical imagination. When the great hunter Harold Ryan--missing and presumed dead--returns from Africa after eight years, his wife is aghast and his son is enchanted. Vonnegut's attack on phony heroes and male swagger uses some of the funniest dialogue ever created for the stage.
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1970
43 people are currently reading
4040 people want to read
About the author
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
710 books36.9k followersKurt Vonnegut, Junior was an American novelist, satirist, and most recently, graphic artist. He was recognized as New York State Author for 2001-2003.
He was born in Indianapolis, later the setting for many of his novels. He attended Cornell University from 1941 to 1943, where he wrote a column for the student newspaper, the Cornell Daily Sun. Vonnegut trained as a chemist and worked as a journalist before joining the U.S. Army and serving in World War II.
After the war, he attended University of Chicago as a graduate student in anthropology and also worked as a police reporter at the City News Bureau of Chicago. He left Chicago to work in Schenectady, New York in public relations for General Electric. He attributed his unadorned writing style to his reporting work.
His experiences as an advance scout in the Battle of the Bulge, and in particular his witnessing of the bombing of Dresden, Germany whilst a prisoner of war, would inform much of his work. This event would also form the core of his most famous work, Slaughterhouse-Five, the book which would make him a millionaire. This acerbic 200-page book is what most people mean when they describe a work as "Vonnegutian" in scope.
Vonnegut was a self-proclaimed humanist and socialist (influenced by the style of Indiana's own Eugene V. Debs) and a lifelong supporter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
The novelist is known for works blending satire, black comedy and science fiction, such as Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), Cat's Cradle (1963), and Breakfast of Champions (1973)
He was born in Indianapolis, later the setting for many of his novels. He attended Cornell University from 1941 to 1943, where he wrote a column for the student newspaper, the Cornell Daily Sun. Vonnegut trained as a chemist and worked as a journalist before joining the U.S. Army and serving in World War II.
After the war, he attended University of Chicago as a graduate student in anthropology and also worked as a police reporter at the City News Bureau of Chicago. He left Chicago to work in Schenectady, New York in public relations for General Electric. He attributed his unadorned writing style to his reporting work.
His experiences as an advance scout in the Battle of the Bulge, and in particular his witnessing of the bombing of Dresden, Germany whilst a prisoner of war, would inform much of his work. This event would also form the core of his most famous work, Slaughterhouse-Five, the book which would make him a millionaire. This acerbic 200-page book is what most people mean when they describe a work as "Vonnegutian" in scope.
Vonnegut was a self-proclaimed humanist and socialist (influenced by the style of Indiana's own Eugene V. Debs) and a lifelong supporter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
The novelist is known for works blending satire, black comedy and science fiction, such as Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), Cat's Cradle (1963), and Breakfast of Champions (1973)
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 236 reviews
June 23, 2015
Happy Birthday, Wanda June is Kurt Vonnegut's response to the uber-macho values of Ernest Hemingway, whose ideas of manliness involved killing animals for sport. This didn't just include Hemingway's fondness for bullfighting, whose goal is killing bulls as efficiently and elegantly as possible, but also Hemingway's hunting of exotic animals. Vonnegut wonders at the destructiveness of this sort of "heroic" manliness. It's the sort of thing that led to the United States dropping two atomic bombs on Japan. Vonnegut inserts his Hemingway caricature into a modern version of Odysseus, who returns home to a different sort of woman than the Greek hero did. Whether or not this is fair to Hemingway as a person, Vonnegut has nonetheless managed to write a witty, entertaining play, even if it does grow a little too preachy at the end.
Penelope Ryan's husband, Harold Ryan, went on a safari and has been missing for eight years. His son, Paul, was four when Harold left, but Paul worships the father he wished he'd had. Many people, in fact, worship Harold Ryan. That's because Harold is a war hero, having killed hundreds of Nazis, some with his bare hands. The killing didn't stop with the war, however. Harold loved to hunt, but after eight years he had been long assumed dead. Penelope finds herself with two suitors chasing after her: Herb Shuttle, a vacuum salesman who dreams of being Harold, and Dr. Norbert Woodly, who opposes violence of any kind and despises the hunting trophies that still litter the Ryan household. Unlike Homer's Penelope, Vonnegut's Penelope encourages both men, alternating between dates with each one. Paul hates them both, but he hates it even more that nobody seems to care it's his father's birthday.
But then Harold makes his return, along with his friend, Colonel Looseleaf Harper, who is haunted by his decision to drop the first atomic bomb. He just goes along with what others tell him, including Harold. Harold believes that when he returns home, everything will return to normal. And if his wife is a bit hesitant in her enthusiasm, well that's nothing a trip to the bedroom won't cure. In this he is sadly mistaken. Even his son is uncertain of what to make of him. Harold seems to despise his own son, believing him not to be manly enough. He even shoos Paul outside in order to get a chance to be alone with Penelope, but Penelope locks Harold out of the bedroom. She's had a college education and she's gotten different ideas of her husband now. Heroes are the type of people, she says to him, who hate home and try to stay away as often as possible, but when they are home they make "awful messes." That's exactly what Harold Ryan does.
Wanda June is also a character in the play. She's a ghost of a ten-year-old girl who was struck and killed by an ice cream truck. So it goes. She's in the play because Shuttle, wanting to appease Paul's anger over people ignoring his father's birthday, buys a birthday cake. This one was on sale because the little girl's parents didn't pick it up. Wanda June is a ghost in heaven, and heaven is such a great place because people can do anything there. She befriends Major Siegfried von Konigswald, a Nazi officer who is also known as the Beast of Yugoslavia. The Major was killed by Harold Ryan. But he and Wanda June say you shouldn't be mad at people who kill you. In fact, it's so great to be up in heaven that people should kill each other more often. This is obviously satire aimed at the likes of Harold Ryan, who believes that being killed in battle is an honor. It's not, Penelope counters, because being killed means you no longer exist. To the Harold Ryans of the world, dying means going to a heaven where you can play shuffleboard all you want and tornadoes will bounce you around but never hurt you. It's a grand place, so nobody should be upset over a little bit of killing.
Harold Ryan truly is a piece of work. He's the most interesting part of the play because he's such a monster. He has a manliness that's tough not to admire, but a personality that's easy to hate. He treats others with derision. He tells his wife to make breakfast without an ounce of gratitude and toys with the emotions of his son. Nobody is good enough for him. There's a part of Hemingway's own work that Vonnegut seems to be reflecting in Harold Ryan. Hemingway is critical, in his prose, of those who don't fit in with his ideals of manliness, which is hardly anybody. Just think of Robert Cohn, from The Sun Also Rises, and the hatred poured on him by the main character. Harold Ryan is the behind the scenes manly man, who drives several wives to drink themselves to an early grave and is now struggling to keep his current wife in his good graces. Vonnegut's values tend to match our own modern values of gender, where men have a growing role in raising the child and taking care of the home and even, God forbid, cooking and doing laundry. Gasp!
The one problem with the play that I have is its turn into moralizing and explaining at the end. There's a verbal showdown between Woodly and Harold where Woodly explains who Harold is and Harold, unbelievingly, sees himself in a new light, as though the conceited man the audience has grown to hate could be so easily swayed. Not that I am going to ruin what happens, as it isn't quite so predictable as you think. While I do agree with Vonnegut's message, the delivery is too direct. His depiction of Wanda June in heaven is effective because of its subtlety, and Vonnegut should have stuck with subtlety rather than pointedly stating his play's overarching "message." Yet I would still highly recommend this play. It has plenty of moments of witty humor and plenty more moments of tension-filled dialogue. Besides, people should read more, no matter what it is, because then there would be more peace and less killing. Dr. Norbert Woodly would love that.
Penelope Ryan's husband, Harold Ryan, went on a safari and has been missing for eight years. His son, Paul, was four when Harold left, but Paul worships the father he wished he'd had. Many people, in fact, worship Harold Ryan. That's because Harold is a war hero, having killed hundreds of Nazis, some with his bare hands. The killing didn't stop with the war, however. Harold loved to hunt, but after eight years he had been long assumed dead. Penelope finds herself with two suitors chasing after her: Herb Shuttle, a vacuum salesman who dreams of being Harold, and Dr. Norbert Woodly, who opposes violence of any kind and despises the hunting trophies that still litter the Ryan household. Unlike Homer's Penelope, Vonnegut's Penelope encourages both men, alternating between dates with each one. Paul hates them both, but he hates it even more that nobody seems to care it's his father's birthday.
But then Harold makes his return, along with his friend, Colonel Looseleaf Harper, who is haunted by his decision to drop the first atomic bomb. He just goes along with what others tell him, including Harold. Harold believes that when he returns home, everything will return to normal. And if his wife is a bit hesitant in her enthusiasm, well that's nothing a trip to the bedroom won't cure. In this he is sadly mistaken. Even his son is uncertain of what to make of him. Harold seems to despise his own son, believing him not to be manly enough. He even shoos Paul outside in order to get a chance to be alone with Penelope, but Penelope locks Harold out of the bedroom. She's had a college education and she's gotten different ideas of her husband now. Heroes are the type of people, she says to him, who hate home and try to stay away as often as possible, but when they are home they make "awful messes." That's exactly what Harold Ryan does.
Wanda June is also a character in the play. She's a ghost of a ten-year-old girl who was struck and killed by an ice cream truck. So it goes. She's in the play because Shuttle, wanting to appease Paul's anger over people ignoring his father's birthday, buys a birthday cake. This one was on sale because the little girl's parents didn't pick it up. Wanda June is a ghost in heaven, and heaven is such a great place because people can do anything there. She befriends Major Siegfried von Konigswald, a Nazi officer who is also known as the Beast of Yugoslavia. The Major was killed by Harold Ryan. But he and Wanda June say you shouldn't be mad at people who kill you. In fact, it's so great to be up in heaven that people should kill each other more often. This is obviously satire aimed at the likes of Harold Ryan, who believes that being killed in battle is an honor. It's not, Penelope counters, because being killed means you no longer exist. To the Harold Ryans of the world, dying means going to a heaven where you can play shuffleboard all you want and tornadoes will bounce you around but never hurt you. It's a grand place, so nobody should be upset over a little bit of killing.
Harold Ryan truly is a piece of work. He's the most interesting part of the play because he's such a monster. He has a manliness that's tough not to admire, but a personality that's easy to hate. He treats others with derision. He tells his wife to make breakfast without an ounce of gratitude and toys with the emotions of his son. Nobody is good enough for him. There's a part of Hemingway's own work that Vonnegut seems to be reflecting in Harold Ryan. Hemingway is critical, in his prose, of those who don't fit in with his ideals of manliness, which is hardly anybody. Just think of Robert Cohn, from The Sun Also Rises, and the hatred poured on him by the main character. Harold Ryan is the behind the scenes manly man, who drives several wives to drink themselves to an early grave and is now struggling to keep his current wife in his good graces. Vonnegut's values tend to match our own modern values of gender, where men have a growing role in raising the child and taking care of the home and even, God forbid, cooking and doing laundry. Gasp!
The one problem with the play that I have is its turn into moralizing and explaining at the end. There's a verbal showdown between Woodly and Harold where Woodly explains who Harold is and Harold, unbelievingly, sees himself in a new light, as though the conceited man the audience has grown to hate could be so easily swayed. Not that I am going to ruin what happens, as it isn't quite so predictable as you think. While I do agree with Vonnegut's message, the delivery is too direct. His depiction of Wanda June in heaven is effective because of its subtlety, and Vonnegut should have stuck with subtlety rather than pointedly stating his play's overarching "message." Yet I would still highly recommend this play. It has plenty of moments of witty humor and plenty more moments of tension-filled dialogue. Besides, people should read more, no matter what it is, because then there would be more peace and less killing. Dr. Norbert Woodly would love that.
May 4, 2021
Second reading.
Not his best but quirky enough to be thoroughly enjoyable.
God Bless You Mr Vonnegut.
So it goes.
Not his best but quirky enough to be thoroughly enjoyable.
God Bless You Mr Vonnegut.
So it goes.
October 28, 2018
“Yeah, Jesus—but wars would be a lot better, I think, if guys would say to themselves sometimes, ‘Jesus—I’m not going to do that to the enemy. That’s too much.’”
“My violin is avenged!”
“My violin is avenged!”
October 24, 2017
I know a lot of people aren't very fond of this play, they wish Vonnegut would've stuck with novels. And who can blame them when his novels are so glorious?
But personally, I thought Wanda June was brilliant! It hilarious, dark, poignant, and supremely hopeful (just like all Vonnegut's work.) I rather enjoyed the fact it was in play format rather than novel or short story. It's an interesting experiment. The characters feel alive in a slightly different way, and the jokes land harder.
While Kurt left plays well alone afterwards I'm left wanting more of his writing in this format.
But personally, I thought Wanda June was brilliant! It hilarious, dark, poignant, and supremely hopeful (just like all Vonnegut's work.) I rather enjoyed the fact it was in play format rather than novel or short story. It's an interesting experiment. The characters feel alive in a slightly different way, and the jokes land harder.
While Kurt left plays well alone afterwards I'm left wanting more of his writing in this format.
August 23, 2021
In Burning Bright, Steinbeck goes halfway between the novel and a play. The result is interesting but has clunky dialogue and storytelling. In this book, Vonnegut decided to go full-play. The result is interesting because while Vonnegut includes a self-written introduction saying the play is awful and that every part of it fails, I actually thought it was his funniest book and the play format perfectly captured his sarcasm and sense of humor. Highly recommended if you like plays or the author's other books.
January 6, 2010
What an odd, quick read. Vonnegut wrote only one play (thank goodness!) and set it as a retelling of Odysseus's return home from war set in the mid 20th century. Like the Odyssey, Penelope has several suitors and a son who lamely attempts to fight them off. The role of the returning war hero is Penelope's brutish husband, Harold, an older, gruffy, rude man who's been missing for 8 years while diamond hunting. A lover of big game, guns and "traditional" masculinity, he revels in his surprise return and emotional control over his family.
Frequently the play reads like something from The Theater of the Absurd. The stilted dialogue, particularly at the end, lends to this affect. In true Vonnegut fashion, Happy Birthday, Wanda June is a commentary on heroism, war, and death. So it goes.
One funny note: I noticed the original Off-Broadway cast (1970-71) included Dianne Wiest (In Treatment, Law & Order, Edward Scissorhands, etc.) as the female understudy.
Frequently the play reads like something from The Theater of the Absurd. The stilted dialogue, particularly at the end, lends to this affect. In true Vonnegut fashion, Happy Birthday, Wanda June is a commentary on heroism, war, and death. So it goes.
One funny note: I noticed the original Off-Broadway cast (1970-71) included Dianne Wiest (In Treatment, Law & Order, Edward Scissorhands, etc.) as the female understudy.
December 31, 2021
I am rarely a fan of farce in place of a plot line. Whatever blatant political points Vonnegut was trying to make here they largely get drowned out by the dull and disorientating attempt at story telling. Script writing is clearly not his forte, and this would be disappointing by any standard, but compared to what Vonnegut is capable of this is a real shame and best avoided.
June 8, 2008
Dialogue never was Vonnegut's strong point. His brilliance came about in his descriptions of oddities and his simple, one-sentence life truths. So a play is less than ideal for ol' Kurt - it's just harder for him to convey what he's best at conveying in this format.
That having been said, this is reasonably funny and reasonably interesting and reasonably strange. It's just not the greatest play I've ever read, and not the greatest Vonnegut. Plus a copy is a bitch to rustle up.
That having been said, this is reasonably funny and reasonably interesting and reasonably strange. It's just not the greatest play I've ever read, and not the greatest Vonnegut. Plus a copy is a bitch to rustle up.
September 7, 2020
Wyśmienicie wysoki poziom absurdu z genialnymi dialogami, który dostarczył mi wyjątkowej rozrywki.
January 18, 2022
Vonnegut lacerates American masculinity using a Hemingway-esque figure at the center is interesting for the time but not sure if it knows what it wants to be (a memory play or a critique of Vietnam?)
October 4, 2019
HAROLD: Whoever has the gun, you see, gets to tell everyone else what to do. It's the American way.
In the comments to Slaughterhouse-Five, Vonnegut writes about how he came back from the war, from POW camp, from watching Dresden burn to the ground, and was told by a relative "now that you've killed, you're a man." He wasn't pleased. Happy Birthday, Wanda June comes partly from that.
As chance would have it, I just rewatched Scenes From a Marraige, and the parallels are curious. Two middle-aged men trying to figure out the new masculinity post-2nd wave feminism and hoping that the future won't be as disgustingly macho. It's not a comparison that does Vonnegut any favours, and I suppose there's a reason he didn't go into plays full-time. That said, as Odyssey rewrites go, it's got a certain small-scale charm as it tackles machismo and hope in a new generation. Yeah, that worked out.
In the comments to Slaughterhouse-Five, Vonnegut writes about how he came back from the war, from POW camp, from watching Dresden burn to the ground, and was told by a relative "now that you've killed, you're a man." He wasn't pleased. Happy Birthday, Wanda June comes partly from that.
As chance would have it, I just rewatched Scenes From a Marraige, and the parallels are curious. Two middle-aged men trying to figure out the new masculinity post-2nd wave feminism and hoping that the future won't be as disgustingly macho. It's not a comparison that does Vonnegut any favours, and I suppose there's a reason he didn't go into plays full-time. That said, as Odyssey rewrites go, it's got a certain small-scale charm as it tackles machismo and hope in a new generation. Yeah, that worked out.
March 17, 2024
Talán nem a legjobb Vonnegut-mű, de azért élveztem. Vannak kissé csiszolatlannak ható elemei, de összességében hozta a Vonneguttól megszokott hangulatot, és a könyv fordítója nagyon érdekes háttérinformációkat is adott az utószóban. A fordítás egyébként remek, ahogy ezeknél lenni szokott, és a kiadás is szép, szeretem ezt a sorozatot.
October 10, 2021
I was at the Broadway flea market last weekend and happened across this book at one of the stands, completely unaware that Vonnegut had written a play. It was a satire of Odysseus’ return home set in “modern” times, and it was fantastic. I really enjoyed reading this one, it was dark and funny, super entertaining.
March 2, 2024
took a little bit to get to the point but overall good story (ngl i’m starting to appreciate plays more.)
but i loooove vague themes
no clue what happened at the end though.
but i loooove vague themes
no clue what happened at the end though.
May 13, 2025
after sleeping on it, i’m bumping it up. i gave it a lower rating initially bc of some of the disgust I felt, but since that’s intentionally done, i think it actually elevates it.
KV really said fuck ernest hemingway and odysseus lol
KV really said fuck ernest hemingway and odysseus lol
Read
September 9, 2024Always love Vonnegut. This one is a little different in that it’s a play. Engaging as always
May 30, 2022
Probably the strangest play I’ve read 👎🏼 not worth the time.
Read
May 19, 2022"I never made Eagle Scout. But you know something? It's a very strange kind of kid that makes Eagle Scout. They always seem so lonesome, like they'd worked real hard to get a job nobody cares about." --Looseleaf
"If I'd lived through the war, and they tried me for war crimes and all that, I'd have to tell the court, I guess, I was only following orders, as a good soldier should. Hitler told me to kill this guy with orange juice." --Von Konigswald
"It was almost worth the trip--to find out that Jesus Christ in Heaven was just another guy, playing shuffleboard. I like his sense of humor, though--you know? He's got a blue-and-gold warm-up jacket he wears. You know what it says on the back? Pontius Pilate Athletic Club. Most people don't get it. Most people think there really is a Pontius Pilate Athletic Club. --Von Konigswald
"If I'd lived through the war, and they tried me for war crimes and all that, I'd have to tell the court, I guess, I was only following orders, as a good soldier should. Hitler told me to kill this guy with orange juice." --Von Konigswald
"It was almost worth the trip--to find out that Jesus Christ in Heaven was just another guy, playing shuffleboard. I like his sense of humor, though--you know? He's got a blue-and-gold warm-up jacket he wears. You know what it says on the back? Pontius Pilate Athletic Club. Most people don't get it. Most people think there really is a Pontius Pilate Athletic Club. --Von Konigswald
June 24, 2012
I like reading dramas and I like Vonnegut but this is not one of his better efforts.
January 30, 2015
The last time I read a play that made me laugh at the end and say wow, it was Beckett's Waiting for Godot. Well played Mr Vonnegut, well played...
January 13, 2022
"Whoever has the gun, you see, gets to tell everyone else what to do. That's the American way"
January 4, 2024
Underrated Vonnegut
January 24, 2024
Vonnegut’s first play, written in 1970, later became a film.
It revolves around Harold Ryan returning home after eight years missing and presumed dead when his plane went down over Africa.
Vonnegut based his character on Hemingway, of whom he was not a fan.
Ryan was a big game hunter, a womanizer, had a wife and three ex wives and calls women “daughter”.
There are also mentions of the snows of Kilimanjaro and the Spanish Civil War.
During the years in Africa, Ryan and his buddy, Colonel Looseleaf Harper shared some interesting experiences:
Blue soup?
An Indian narcotic we were forced to drink. It put us in a haze—a honey-colored haze which was lavender around the edge. We laughed, we sang, we snoozed. When a bird called, we answered back. Every living thing was our brother or our sister, we thought. Looseleaf stepped on a cockroach six inches long, and we cried. We had a funeral that went on for five days—for the cockroach! I sang “Oh Promise Me.” Can you imagine? Where the hell did I ever learn the words to “Oh Promise Me”? Looseleaf delivered a lecture on maintenance procedures for the hydraulic system of a B-36. All the time we were drinking blue soup. Blue soup all the time. We’d go out after food in that honey-colored haze, and everything that was edible had a penumbra of lavender.
We also get insight on what Heaven is like:
You know what happened in Heaven today? There was a tornado. I’m not kidding you—there was a ******* tornado. Tore up fifty-six houses, a dance pavilion and a Ferris wheel. Drove a shuffleboard stick clear through a telephone pole. Nobody got killed. Nobody ever gets killed. They just bounce around a lot. Then they get up—and start playing shuffleboard again.
Also learned:
Don’t ever fight a guy when you’ve got on roller skates.
……What’s this? A cake? “Happy Birthday, Wanda June”? Who the hell is Wanda June?
It revolves around Harold Ryan returning home after eight years missing and presumed dead when his plane went down over Africa.
Vonnegut based his character on Hemingway, of whom he was not a fan.
Ryan was a big game hunter, a womanizer, had a wife and three ex wives and calls women “daughter”.
There are also mentions of the snows of Kilimanjaro and the Spanish Civil War.
During the years in Africa, Ryan and his buddy, Colonel Looseleaf Harper shared some interesting experiences:
Blue soup?
An Indian narcotic we were forced to drink. It put us in a haze—a honey-colored haze which was lavender around the edge. We laughed, we sang, we snoozed. When a bird called, we answered back. Every living thing was our brother or our sister, we thought. Looseleaf stepped on a cockroach six inches long, and we cried. We had a funeral that went on for five days—for the cockroach! I sang “Oh Promise Me.” Can you imagine? Where the hell did I ever learn the words to “Oh Promise Me”? Looseleaf delivered a lecture on maintenance procedures for the hydraulic system of a B-36. All the time we were drinking blue soup. Blue soup all the time. We’d go out after food in that honey-colored haze, and everything that was edible had a penumbra of lavender.
We also get insight on what Heaven is like:
You know what happened in Heaven today? There was a tornado. I’m not kidding you—there was a ******* tornado. Tore up fifty-six houses, a dance pavilion and a Ferris wheel. Drove a shuffleboard stick clear through a telephone pole. Nobody got killed. Nobody ever gets killed. They just bounce around a lot. Then they get up—and start playing shuffleboard again.
Also learned:
Don’t ever fight a guy when you’ve got on roller skates.
……What’s this? A cake? “Happy Birthday, Wanda June”? Who the hell is Wanda June?
November 21, 2021
This book caught me at the perfect time and was exactly what I was wanting. I'm a big fan of reading plays - love the format.
Anywho, MACHISMO! this is a wonderful tale of a ultra-maculine father returning home after 8 years. He was presumed dead and arrives home to see his wife with suitors. Shenanigans ensue.
I loved the ending, the banter, and the on the nose and over the top moral messaging.
If you enjoy reading plays I would definitely reccomend this simple and direct one! 🎂
Anywho, MACHISMO! this is a wonderful tale of a ultra-maculine father returning home after 8 years. He was presumed dead and arrives home to see his wife with suitors. Shenanigans ensue.
I loved the ending, the banter, and the on the nose and over the top moral messaging.
If you enjoy reading plays I would definitely reccomend this simple and direct one! 🎂
Read
April 28, 2025every male character in this play: *looks to man next to him* you make me want to kill myself, you know that right? you’re so stupid you make me want to DIE!!
penelope: *takes a nap instead of talking to her husband who has been missing for a decade*
harper: i can’t believe they invented playboy while i was trapped in the rainforest 🤯
penelope: *takes a nap instead of talking to her husband who has been missing for a decade*
harper: i can’t believe they invented playboy while i was trapped in the rainforest 🤯
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 9, 2024
What in the Vonnegat was this?! Harrison Bergeron has NOTHING on this play. Insane.
December 29, 2018
Highly enjoyable! I don’t read many plays, but if this is an indication of the fun and creative nature that modern playwrights can bring, I am interested to check out more. Only my second Vonnegut (other was Slaughterhouse), but his very inventive and witty bouts of dialogue and sarcastic double meanings are welcome respite from the overly serious and self-involved reading I typically pursue.
February 15, 2022
Was this a happy coincidence or something else entirely, that I started this one after coming off of (re)reading "The Old Man and the Sea," by Hemingway, about a different hunt entirely? There's a great letter in the appendix entitled "On the Blue Water: A Gulf Stream Letter" (1936), the impetus for which was a discussion between Hemingway and one of his hunter friends, who, it appears, like the character General Zaroff in Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game," has become bored with the rather mundane hunting of helpless creatures (more or less), favoring instead only driven-elephant hunting, whereby he experiences the thrill of the hunt only when being charged by a seven-ton beast seeking to run him over. Hemingway says that "to him there is no sport in anything unless there is great danger and, if the danger is not enough, he will increase it for his own satisfaction."
I could proffer here my own interpretation of this person's, well, over-compensatory compulsions, but I'll leave that alone! What follows is Hemingway's fishing philosophy, specifically that there is danger aplenty in being on the sea, fishing or not, but that the thrill was in the unknowing: "in hunting you know what you are after... but who can say what you will hook sometime when drifting in a hundred and fifty fathoms in the Gulf Stream." There are different kinds of thrills, I suppose, and satisfactions, too.
Anywho: in any event, Kurt clearly didn't approve, as he demonstrates in his first play, "Wanda June." He said as much, in fact, when, he surprisingly discussed Hemingway's hunting (!), which he found distasteful, at the least. This rather irreverent play apparent began its life as "Penelope," inspired by the Odyssey, where the hero's ever-faithful wife, even after she has no reason to expect that he's still alive, having gone off to war, wards off a steady string of suitors who wish to supplant her husband. Kurt clearly doesn't see Odysseus as a hero, however, writing that he envisioned him as "a lot like that part of Hemingway which I detested - the slayer of nearly extinct animals which meant him no harm." Slayer of men, too, in Kurt's view: killing is killing, and those who enjoy the hunting of animals also usually see glory in the deaths of men. It appears that Hemingway's specter - or that of the heroic masculine ideal, at least, looms at least a little if not large in this work, as well.
As the dialogue is quite minimal, I kept asking myself, "what's this about?" I think Kurt said it best, so everyone else could understand it, is in the opening, which says, "this is a simple-minded play about men who enjoy killing, and those who don't." Essentially, it's his opposition to books by and about Hemingway-esque figures, who celebrate killing as the ultimate act of masculinity. The central character is Penelope, the wife of Harold Ryan, a big-game hunter and soldier-adventurer who claims to have killed two hundred men men, who has been lost in the Amazon jungle and presumed dead for eight years. He finally makes it back, with sidekick Colonel Harper, who it is said dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Unlike the Homeric Penelope, however, Harold's wife has been cavorting with not one but two men in his absence, a former-test-pilot-turned insurance salesman named Shuttle, and a hippie doctor, Dr. Woodly, who, as it turns out, is now Penelope's fiance, much to the chagrin of their young son, Paul, who worships the father he's never known solely on account of the epic tales of his exploits and the remnants of them: the taxidermy animals which litter their apartment.
Hilarity and farce ensues when Harold returns home, unannounced, to find that the world he left nearly a decade prior has changed much for the worse: Harold believes that the US has become castrated, weak, and all its traditional, rugged heroes have been supplanted by the type of effeminate men his wife has been entertaining. Harold laments that there is no enemy left to conquer. I don't really get where Wanda June comes in: she's a ten-year-old who was run over by an ice cream truck, and now lives in heaven with another colorful cast of characters, including Major von Konigswald, the Beast of Yugoslavia, one of Harold's victims, as well as one of Harold's former wives who drank herself to death. It seems that things are pretty tranquil in heaven, too: everyone just hangs around and plays shuffleboard. Apparently there were several versions of the play with alternate endings, but this one has a disillusioned Harold attempting suicide, ala Hemingway himself... but he can't pull it off.
The play opened in New York in 1971, and ran for about a hundred performances. It's since been reworked as an opera, which debuted at Butler University in 2016, and was revived as an Off-Off-Broadway production in 2018. Definitely not one of my favorites, but it was a curious coincidence that I read this just after finishing what is widely considered as the best of Hemingway's works and one of the most iconic works of American literature of all time. Go figure.
I could proffer here my own interpretation of this person's, well, over-compensatory compulsions, but I'll leave that alone! What follows is Hemingway's fishing philosophy, specifically that there is danger aplenty in being on the sea, fishing or not, but that the thrill was in the unknowing: "in hunting you know what you are after... but who can say what you will hook sometime when drifting in a hundred and fifty fathoms in the Gulf Stream." There are different kinds of thrills, I suppose, and satisfactions, too.
Anywho: in any event, Kurt clearly didn't approve, as he demonstrates in his first play, "Wanda June." He said as much, in fact, when, he surprisingly discussed Hemingway's hunting (!), which he found distasteful, at the least. This rather irreverent play apparent began its life as "Penelope," inspired by the Odyssey, where the hero's ever-faithful wife, even after she has no reason to expect that he's still alive, having gone off to war, wards off a steady string of suitors who wish to supplant her husband. Kurt clearly doesn't see Odysseus as a hero, however, writing that he envisioned him as "a lot like that part of Hemingway which I detested - the slayer of nearly extinct animals which meant him no harm." Slayer of men, too, in Kurt's view: killing is killing, and those who enjoy the hunting of animals also usually see glory in the deaths of men. It appears that Hemingway's specter - or that of the heroic masculine ideal, at least, looms at least a little if not large in this work, as well.
As the dialogue is quite minimal, I kept asking myself, "what's this about?" I think Kurt said it best, so everyone else could understand it, is in the opening, which says, "this is a simple-minded play about men who enjoy killing, and those who don't." Essentially, it's his opposition to books by and about Hemingway-esque figures, who celebrate killing as the ultimate act of masculinity. The central character is Penelope, the wife of Harold Ryan, a big-game hunter and soldier-adventurer who claims to have killed two hundred men men, who has been lost in the Amazon jungle and presumed dead for eight years. He finally makes it back, with sidekick Colonel Harper, who it is said dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Unlike the Homeric Penelope, however, Harold's wife has been cavorting with not one but two men in his absence, a former-test-pilot-turned insurance salesman named Shuttle, and a hippie doctor, Dr. Woodly, who, as it turns out, is now Penelope's fiance, much to the chagrin of their young son, Paul, who worships the father he's never known solely on account of the epic tales of his exploits and the remnants of them: the taxidermy animals which litter their apartment.
Hilarity and farce ensues when Harold returns home, unannounced, to find that the world he left nearly a decade prior has changed much for the worse: Harold believes that the US has become castrated, weak, and all its traditional, rugged heroes have been supplanted by the type of effeminate men his wife has been entertaining. Harold laments that there is no enemy left to conquer. I don't really get where Wanda June comes in: she's a ten-year-old who was run over by an ice cream truck, and now lives in heaven with another colorful cast of characters, including Major von Konigswald, the Beast of Yugoslavia, one of Harold's victims, as well as one of Harold's former wives who drank herself to death. It seems that things are pretty tranquil in heaven, too: everyone just hangs around and plays shuffleboard. Apparently there were several versions of the play with alternate endings, but this one has a disillusioned Harold attempting suicide, ala Hemingway himself... but he can't pull it off.
The play opened in New York in 1971, and ran for about a hundred performances. It's since been reworked as an opera, which debuted at Butler University in 2016, and was revived as an Off-Off-Broadway production in 2018. Definitely not one of my favorites, but it was a curious coincidence that I read this just after finishing what is widely considered as the best of Hemingway's works and one of the most iconic works of American literature of all time. Go figure.
July 18, 2023
not my favorite of kurt’s but it was interesting to see how his usual voice translates into play format. the ending felt a little rushed to me but I guess you have more unusual restraints when writing is meant to be performed and monetized. cool quick read.
October 21, 2025
***3.5 specifically
Displaying 1 - 30 of 236 reviews