Christopher Durang Explains it All for You: Six Plays by Christopher Durang

by Christopher Durang

Few playwrights have explored as relentlessly as Christopher Durang the pain and confusion of everyday life-or made us laugh so uproariously at the results. ' dentity CrisisRecovering from a nervous breakdown, Jane is nursed and nagged by her energetic and overwhelming mother, Edith Fromage, who claims to have invented cheese. She also criticizes Jane for her suicide attempt, but then claims it never happened. Plus Jane is very confused by the fact that her mother and her brother Dwayne seem to be having an affair. But then at other times, her brother turns into her father, and then into her grandfather, and sometimes into a French count. So Jane isn’t really sure who he is. Her psychiatrist makes a house call and listens sympathetically to Jane’s recurring memory of attending a nightmarish production of “Peter Pan” in her youth. But then he goes off and has sex change, and returns as a woman, and Jane has trouble recognizing him. Then his wife shows up, also with a sex change, and the wife now looks like the psychiatrist. So poor Jane feels crazier still, though Edith and Dwayne/father/ grandfather/count think the new company is great fun, and everybody ends by conjugating the verb “dentity” : I dentity, you dentity, he she or it denties.The Actor's NightmareThe Actor's Nightmare is a short comic play by Christopher Durang. It involves an accountant named George Spelvin, who is mistaken for an actor's understudy and forced to perform in a play for which he doesn't know any of the lines.

Genres: Plays, Drama, Theatre, Humor, Comedy, American, Dark

Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

Reviews

[Sketchbook · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chris Durang is a supremely gifted & hilarious writer. Bwy, awash with cliches, needs his creative spirit. 3 plays here are knockouts. 'The Actor's Nightmare,' a tiered cake of comedy, shows what happens when a doofus accidentally finds himself improvising Coward & Shakespeare.~ 'Sister Mary..' reminds us that religion is about Authority and Humiliation. Catholic or Otherwise, Durang says the Myth never answers human suffering. We dare not Question the Godhed. Relig is solely for simpletons.

Durang's voice is the oppposite of what you have today in Hollywd-Bwy slop where the laffs depend on obscenity and infantile vulgarity. Durang is an intelligent and civilized worldling.

'Beyond Therapy,' now a Pop classic in regional theaters, is a prickly gem of comedia. A personnel ad brings m/f together. "I hope I'm not too macho," he sighs, before explaining that he's bisexual. Both have crazed therapists. She tells hers, "You make no distinctions between sexual intercourse and push-ups." ~ Philistines oft don't understand Durang's wit, which gets whacked in Robt Altman's film version (despite some nice performances.) "Switching from lunatic comedy to seriousness is something that interests me," says Durang. This is the best American comedy of the last 45 years. Bwy needs him. Where is he?

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

The too cutesy biographical introduction and its mention of the author attending Harvard AND Yale irritated me before I even got to the plays, and the passage of time has softened much of the work's transgressive qualities, but some of the dialogue's absurdities are still very funny, and the final two plays in the collection ("Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You" and "Beyond Therapy") manage their blend of exaggerated comedy and honest human emotion with more confidence and less show-off-itis than their predecessors. I would have loved reading this when I was in high school.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Irreverent mixture of parody, satire, theater jokes, and nonsense.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're a fan of Durang, or comedy writing in general, this is one of the best collections of shorter plays you will find. Durang is a master of comedic timing, and a genius in writing characters who are so flawed that they have no choice but to be hilarious, although they of course take themselves seriously the whole time.

[Cinco · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's all done with white bread and mirrors.

[Whitney · Rating 5 out of 5]

these plays are weird, hilarious, pure fun! i love all of his work!

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very fun one-act play that's a lot smarter than I realized the first time I read it fifteen years ago. Now that I'm familiar with the plays referenced in it, it's even better than I remembered.

[David]

Towards the end of "Beyond Therapy," the last of the plays in this collection, the dialogue moves momentarily into discussing how Chekhof's plays usually look like tragedies, even though Chekhov himself considered them comedies. Durang is more obviously 'funny' than Chekhov was, at least in terms of measurements like provoking laughter, but the element of tragedy is shared. There's a lot of laughter in these plays, but the laughter grows out of an absurdism which sadly, maybe tragically, reflects a reality that over 40 years later is even more obvious in US culture. And not just the US of course. This is a strange world.

[Maureen · Rating 2 out of 5]

maybe 2.5? Essentially clever, but this sort of violent, sexual humor isn’t really up my alley. Also every play was essentially the same - people having identity crises/insisting they are someone who they aren’t (or are they?) and LOTS of resentment toward Catholicism. I will say that I liked “‘dentity Crisis” quite a bit.

[N. N. Santiago · Rating 4 out of 5]

Skip the first three plays, his earliest, but once he starts to hone the use of surrealism towards more controlled ends, things really pick up. Apart from the obvious Sister Mary Ignatius, a highlight is the dark, discomfiting yet almost sitcom-like Beyond Therapy.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read "The Nature and Purpose of the Universe" - 3 stars & "'Dentity Crisis" - 5 stars to balance out at 3 stars. All other plays in the collection are accounted for separately on Goodreads because I want to win my reading challenge for once.

[Julian Munds · Rating 2 out of 5]

This series of plays showed that I am not a fan of Durang's work. It's superficial. Cynical. Often played for laughs and sometimes half written. I am not sure why Durang is as highly regarded as he is.

[James Binz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of Durangs best stuff. Dated. Fun to read.

[Dan Blackley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is Christopher Durang’s full length-plays. They are very good plays and I have seen many of them or worked on scenes from them.

[Caitlin Buxbaum · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think I can officially say Durang is not for me. His plays are supposed to be comedies but they just come off bitter and absurd.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Right off the bat, let me say I am not a theater person, so if you are concerned based on the following that I don't recognize genius when I see it, my apologies.

I like 2 out of 6 of the plays in this collection: Sister Mary Ignatius and Beyond Therapy. I get the impression that Sister Mary Ignatius is one of his most famous plays, and I can see why: the structure of the play, with the nun's word as unquestionable (but darkly funny) law at the beginning, which gradually unravels into even more overt insanity as other voices begin to question her authority, is a perfect method for critique of the Catholic Church. The four adult children were perfectly balanced types, the sort of dissimilar people you could easily pick out of any class years later, who have long since lost touch and were probably never good friends to begin with, yet are still pulled togetehr by the sheer force of childhood experience. Sister Mary is perfect in the way tensions between conflicting ideas simmer so far below the surface that she does not even recognize the problem is coming from her.

I read that John Lithgow and Sigourney Weaver were cast in (different productions of) Beyond Therapy, and it was great because the characters they played seemed perfect for those actors - I instinctively began to hear the words in their voices. Troubled conversations about relationships are buoyed by the zany-to-crazy foibles of the characters involved in them. That said, I personally felt that the play could have been cut off before Scene 3, but that's my opinion.

The rest were... okay? They seemed too desperately zany/provocative to me. I am sure they give actors a good forum for slapstick , but to me when things are carried to excess for shock value, they become blunted and ultimately lose any impact they may have had. I think the reason I enjoyed the above two plays as much as I did was because they do teeter so precariously, and compellingly, on that line between sanity and insanity.

[Neil · Rating 4 out of 5]

The craziest part of this book is in the author’s bio where it notes he got a Masters in Playwriting from Yale. The balls it takes to think you can make a living writing plays. The Balls. In the last year of conversations I’ve had, I can’t think of one that mentions someone going to a play that didn’t involve an offspring or possibly a Godchild. And I live in San Francisco where I just saw a theater ‘production’ merging dancing and radio shows with Ira Glass. Sure I may need classier friends but how many people in America fill out their tax return with “playwright” as the occupation? 25? I imagine most playwrights don’t make enough to file a return. I have to think that at the Yale School of Drama one of the requirements of the guidance counselors must be to ask students, “You have a trust fund right?” Getting a Masters in Playwriting … I mean … are you fucking serious?

But props to CD because the crazy bastard pulled it off. And these 6 plays are funny. Granted they are all totally over the top and absurd, but the banter between characters never slows from turbo. ‘The Nature & Purpose of Everything’ has too much violence for me. I’ll give you two male on female slaps and then you’re cut off. They should teach that rule in the Yale School of Drama. ‘Titantic’, ‘’denity Crisis’, and ‘Beyond Therapy’ were all plays cut from the same 'over the top' mold, so reading them back to back it gets a little old. Frankly I think you’d be well served to just read ‘The Actors Nightmare’ & ‘Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You’. They are the show-pieces in this collection. And I’ll be sure to go see any of these plays if they are playing in SF because I’m sure CD is still carrying some Yale debt and you can’t discharge that debt in bankruptcy.

[Stewart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Christopher Durang is our Aristophanes. There’s no funnier contemporary playwright. This volume contains, among a lot of very amusing but slight short plays written during his days at Yale Drama (the best of which is “’dentity Crisis”, with the dazzlingly schizophrenic Edith Fromage), two of his best and most successful plays. “Beyond Therapy�� is a hysterical romantic farce that sets its gun sights on our contemporary penchant for psychotherapy. “Sister Mary Explains It All For You” is probably Durang’s most famous piece, a painfully funny satire of Roman Catholicism and religion in general. These are themes Durang returns to again and again in his work, but never with such a spirit of hilarious school-boy anarchy. Sister Mary is faith-based insanity incarnate. Never miss a chance to see either of these plays performed – you’ll laugh so hard you’ll be fighting for breath.

[Drew · Rating 2 out of 5]

The absurdist "'dentity Crisis" is pretty much hilarious from start to finish while "Sister Mary Ignatius...," "Titanic" and "Beyond Therapy" are a mixture of big laughs and big yawns in various measures. Outside of that, "The Nature and Purpose of the Universe" is hatefully misogynist and "The Actor's Nightmare" is D.O.A. I wish I liked this collection of plays more given how very much I liked parts of it.

[Luke Devenish · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've never read a play by Durang that wasn't bloody hilarious and outright insane. All six of these plays fit the bill. Hard to pick which one needs the straight jacket more. Probably 'Dentity Crisis. He's written in various introductions about how he's come to fear the critics for never quite getting him. Thankfully, his plays show so little sign of that fear. Each one is as inhibited and lunatic as the last. They inspire me.

[Dusty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Within the six plays there are obvious themes that Christopher Durang likes to write about--religion, homosexuality, outrageous characters and plots. I liked every one of the plays found myself not being able to stop in the middle of one because I was too interested in where the story was going. It's random enough to keep you interested haha.

[Nan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Durang is by turns humorous and horrifying. He holds a very twisted mirror up to the world, and I often see myself there. Even though I'm not a Catholic, I identify with Sister Mary Ignatius and the temptations of blind faith. Sometimes, though, I just want to look away. "Titanic" was silly, and the violence of "The Nature and Purpose of the Universe" seemed unacceptable.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh how I adored Durang's wild rebelliousness when I was younger. Maybe it's a sign of my age that now I see a Neil Simon-esque drive for one-liners and a complete disregard for story masked by all the delightful chaos. I will always be fond of these plays, but they seem odd period pieces written for a very small target audience now.

[CJ Dawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The Nature and Purpose of the Universe" is just bizarre and absurd, and while the satire is easy to spot, it was a little over the top for me and bordered on offensive. However, if that play doesn't turn you off from the rest of the collection the other plays aren't bad, definitely more humorous and enjoyable than the first one.

[Tom Cork · Rating 5 out of 5]

Christopher Durang is my idol. If masturbation to a play were ever possible...well...ahem. Read "Sister Mary Ignatius..." for the popular read, and "The Nature and Purpose of the Universe" for utterly cruel fun.

[Mary Rizzo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of early plays by Durang gives one a peek into his unique sensibility (had to be from Jersey, right?). Interesting to see him beginning to grapple with his ideas about identity, suffering, and miscommunication in each of these pieces.

[Jamie E · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I saw "The Actor's Nightmare" performed live I was itching to get my hands on any other work by the playwright. I came across this collection and fell in love with his work; "Sister Mary Ignatius Explains it All For You" and "'dentity Crisis" being standouts.

[Alisha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Of the six plays, the last - "Beyond Therapy"- was the best one. It has a nice balance of hyperbole and realism.

"The Actor's Nightmare" is also a great piece, with all the things an actor fears happening all in one production.

I didn't care for the other four plays in the book.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing, I finished them all really quickly, it was quite amusing.

[Blake · Rating 5 out of 5]

I still have this on my shelf. Amazing.