Sons of the Prophet

by Stephen Karam

From the NEW YORK TIMES: Joseph is a former running champ, so the inflammation in his knees naturally seems to be the fallout from a torn ligament. But something more “global” appears to be at work, and in any case he is distracted from his dreary rounds of diagnosis-seeking when a more urgent tragedy befalls the family. Joseph’s father, a former steelworker, was driving home from his new maintenance job when he swerved to avoid a deer and crashed his car, landing in the hospital. A week later he died of a heart attack.

The deer, it turns out, was a stuffed decoy placed there by a high school student as a prank. This enrages Joseph’s older and ailing uncle, Bill (Yusef Bulos), who is even more disgusted when it is learned that the culprit is the star of the local football team, Vin (Jonathan Louis Dent), a town hero who is given a dispensation by a judge to serve his sentence in juvenile detention after the football season has concluded. Joseph and his younger brother, Charles (Chris Perfetti) — who are both gay — are more sympathetic to Vin, an African-American boy who has grown up in a foster home, and whose chance at a professional career may be jeopardized.

Gloria (Joanna Gleason), Joseph’s new boss and a book packaging expert, knows a little about career jeopardy herself. She was run out of the publishing business — and Manhattan — when she sold a memoir by a Holocaust survivor that turned out to be fictionalized. (Gloria’s story and Vin’s are inspired by actual events.)

Now she latches on to the discovery that Joseph’s family, of Lebanese extraction, is distantly related to Kahlil Gibran, author of the perennial best-selling spiritual book “The Prophet.” In her hilariously addled mind — complaining about her fall from grace, she defensively remarks, “I wasn’t at the Holocaust” — she decides that a memoir by Joseph about his family’s journey will be her ticket back to the big time.

Mr. Karam’s play, which runs a little less than two hours and is performed in one seamless act , may sound top-heavy with plot and character. (Did I mention that Gloria’s emotional frailty also stems from the suicide of her husband?) Some of the relationships would benefit from being fleshed out in greater detail: the integration of Gloria into the lives of Joseph and his family, for example. The play’s climax shoehorns all the elements of the story into a farcical scene that seems a little forced, funny though it is.

But one of Mr. Karam’s themes is the indiscriminate nature of misfortune — one calamity does not immunize you from the next, worse one — so the multiplication of disasters roiling the characters’ lives is to the point. And he writes with such precision that even the more peripheral characters emerge as sharply drawn, multifaceted individuals.

Genres: Plays, Drama, Theatre, Humor, Fiction, Comedy

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Stephen Karam is the author of Sons of the Prophet, a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize and the recipient of the 2012 Drama Critics Circle, Outer Critics Circle, Lucille Lortel and Hull-Warriner Awards for Best Play. His other play is Speech & Debate, the inaugural production of Roundabout Underground; columbinus (New York Theatre Workshop). He wrote the libretto for Dark Sisters, an original chamber opera with composer Nico Muhly (co-produced by Gotham Chamber Opera, MTG and Opera Company of Philadelphia).

Reviews

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd read this when it was first published, but wanted to re-read it after finishing Karam's Tony Award-winning latest play 'The Humans' This won both the NY Drama Critic Circle and Lucille Lortel Award for Best Play, as well as being a finalist for the Pulitzer four years ago, and I will be seeing a production in SF in about a month. It's an odd play, more a tragedy than a comedy, and it's telling that the published script has two epigrams from Chekhov, the master of such things. It's a fun read, and I'll be interested to see how it holds up on stage.

[Lauren · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh look. Another story about a dysfunctional family in a Pulitzer Prize play. I am so very shocked that the Pulitzer Committee is recognizing yet another play about a family who is dysfunctional.
(The above is sarcasm.)

There’s an interesting idea here, but the lack of decent female characters and the overabundance of issues (Health problems! Two gay sons! A racist old uncle who has to go to the bathroom with the door open! A rich closeted guy! A clueless rich woman!) take away from the central story, which seems to be about the fallout of an unintentional death caused by a car accident.

Rabbit Hole, which won the Pulitzer a few years before this, centered around an almost identical accident, only with a child and grieving parents rather than children grieving a parent. That alone leads for a richer dynamic, in that a parent losing a young child isn’t how things are supposed to go. Rabbit Hole had its own weird subplot, but it related back to the central tragedy. With its tighter focus on the tragedy and the fallout, Rabbit Hole was emotionally devastating even on page. Sons of the Prophet feels like an awkward attempt at mimicry by a teenager taking a creative writing class.

Modern playwrights: Please stop with this “everything but the kitchen sink” approach to playwriting. And come by quirks and dysfunction from a natural space, not just by asking “how can I make this play seem quirky but also politically correct”? Not recommended.

[Si Squires-Kasten · Rating 3 out of 5]

In some ways, I admire how loose Karam lets his story get - there are too many characters, and plot elements just kind of flicker in and out, which make the play far more interesting than something like Other Desert Cities that plainly retraces the well-made American family drama. However, although his use of overlapping dialogue is impressive, it's hard for me to imagine this play sticking with me down the line.

[sL · Rating 5 out of 5]

bro

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is by far my favorite play. I saw it in New York with Santino Fontana and Joanna Gleason on a pure whim. I was beyond thrilled at this show. It moved me, it really spoke to me. I loved it so much, I saw it a second time. I laughed, I sobbed, it really moved me. It's become my favorite play, and I hope to one day be in a production.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny and dark play about pain and loneliness in Maronite Pennsylvania.

[Sarah Pitman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tender, funny play about a family that doesn't quite have it together, but is trying. Loved the dynamic of the relationship between brothers Joseph and Charles and their uncle Bill. Somehow this play manages to be funny without any real comedy--it doesn't take itself too seriously but also doesn't pitch for laughs. Except maybe for Gloria, who makes you cringe but also made me want to swoop in, bundle her up, and sit down to make a counselling appointment together. Not too sure about the end, how it ended was fine, just where that last scene takes place seems so far removed from the rest of the story and the majority of the characters that it felt a little less impactful. But I enjoyed this overall. Not overly theatrical, so it reads well though I don't know how much of an impression this would make on the stage.

[Jude al-Ghazal Stone · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best play I've ever read. The script is both heartbreaking and funny, and Karam captures the realities of grief, life, growth, family, and the mundane. This play has a very slice-of-life feel, and Karam does well to not pigeon-hole it as an "issues" play with 2 dimensional characters whose entire characters are their marginalized statuses. Instead, he fleshes out each character in such a way that their problems are extremely unique to their situation and yet universal. I do wish it had stronger female characters, but otherwise, this play is a masterpiece.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second play I have read by Stephen Karam. It is an interesting play. Would have enjoyed seeing Santino Fontana in it I am sure. One of the characters seems to be based on an actor the playwright worked with before so I liked reading the scenes with that character too. Nothing beats seeing theater but since we can't go out right now, I am reading some plays.

[Karen Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sharp, witty, hilarious, and tragic. Being Lebanese American, gay with ailing health in a broken, rural, post-industrial town in Pennsylvania with a crazy boss-the only path to health insurance. Covers just about everything, but I just loved the people.

[Novia Malinda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I JUST WANT TO READ THE SCRIPT

[Tom Houlton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliantly real and funny. Shows what it means to be an individual in a family.

[j · Rating 4 out of 5]

fuck The Humans this shouldve been the one to win the pulitzer

[Herbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fast-paced and well-written. I’d love to see a staged version of this.

[Jessica López-Barkl · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this play was amazingly unique and touching. Having just lost my father myself, I instantly saw the honesty in the absurdity of death and disease. Most people just say, "I'm so sorry," and all the recipient of the apology can do is say, "Thank you." That whole exchange is so incredibly absurd. "Thank you, for my father's death," or in this case, "Thank you for the absurd way my father died, and the fact that I have some rare disease that's taking away my gift of running..." Oh, and, sorry your family comes from a part of the world that is constantly ravaged with drama, and, oh yeah, I'm sorry, that you are gay...So many trials and issues surround the story of this play, but the honesty in the absurdity is breathtakingly brave, and my hat (even though I don't wear any) is off to Stephen Karam for being brave. In his interview before the play, published in AMERICAN THEATRE's February 2012 issue, said that many people thought that he shouldn't make both the lead male characters gay (the brothers), and he said, "One area where I didn't budge (but thought long and hard about): telling a story about two gay brothers. I stuck with my gut -- but it wasn't some noble decision. I just realized the heartbeat of the play doesn't revolve around the brothers' sexuality, so I felt sure that people who dislike the play would still dislike it even if I switched their sexuality. I've heard gay writers on occasion talk about doing the opposite - defending their decision to write mostly straight protagonists because they want to reach the largest possible audience. But that thinking is outdated, right? I mean, I'm moved by straight characters all the time. THE THREE SISTERS moves me every time -- and I've never thought "If only Masha and Olga were a little lez, I might have an in to this narrative..." So I trusted that straight audiences could relate to a family with two gay siblings." My playwrighting instructor in grad school, Stuart Spencer, used to always tell us that the "urrrr play," the one from our gut, is the one to deal with and write about, and it's obvious that in this play that Stephen Karam's insistence about sticking to the story in his head works. I also think that Tony Kushner opened the art form wide with ANGELS IN AMERICA, and I'm not talking about the gay theme, but allowing many themes to live within the play, and not worrying so much about too many themes clouding a story. American Theatre must match its culture which is multi-faceted, plural, and, most importantly, contradictory. Bravo to Stephen Karam, and I hope, this play has a great life in the years to come.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like there was too much tragedy given to one character in this play to be believable. The main character is Joseph Douaihy, who is a supposed descendant of a prophet, whose name escapes me now. Both he and his brother, Charles, are gay, and lament that the Douaihy lineage will end with them. Joseph used to be an athlete, but a degenerative disease, coupled with no health insurance, has him debilitated. This situation forces him into a bind, as his boss wants him to write a memoir about his family. Doing so would get him health insurance, but he is sincerely not interested in writing this story & giving up the goods on his family. Then, Joseph & Charles's father is in a car accident, caused by a plastic deer put in the middle of the road by a local high school super-star football player. The accident causes complications & the father dies, leaving his handicapped brother, Bill, in the less than capable hands of his nephews. Uncle Bill is hardly able to walk and the boys must adjust their home to accommodate him. Then, a reporter investigates the case against the high school player, whose trial might be delayed to coincide with the football season. Joseph attempts a relationship with him, while Charles attempts a relationship with the football player. It is indeed craziness and despair all at once, but both emotions are severely restrained by the characters in their dialogue.

[Sarah Bandke · Rating 1 out of 5]

Worst play I have ever read.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good script. A lot of emotion and thought was put into this. The climax is fantastic, and very well paced. A few problems got in the way though. There is a bit with two people towards the end which was funny once, but didn’t need to continue. It felt a bit forced. Also, the ending, while still good, could have been stronger.

[Bobby Sullivan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stephen Karam is a very empathetic writer. I enjoy the vulnerability of his characters. So many of the people in this play are experiencing so many different types of hurt... The reader just hurts right along with them. I honestly wonder how Joe manages to not blow up for so long, with all the stupid he keeps having to put up with.

I think this would be a fun play to direct and/or perform.

[Agnes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ehh. I found this quite boring. And I really tried to pay attention due to the short format. I’m still not quite sure what to think about it though. It is probably better to watch it live or actually performed.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though I found some brief humor in this, I still found it exceptionally BORING

[Evan Jewell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Moving...

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite plays - holds up very well on the page.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

A play with such a satisfying number of things going on that it feels new and familiar at the same time. My favourite Karam play so far.

[Cori]

(Play discussion group script #14)