جوانی از آتلانتا

by Horton Foote, سکینه عرب‌نژاد (Translator)

From the Oscar-winning screenwriter of To Kill a Mockingbird and Tender Mercies comes this 1995 Pulitzer Prize-winning play--"an American original" (Variety). Houston, 1950: A Texas couple's attempts to make sense of the death of their son are futher complicated when the man he had been "rooming with" in Atlanta arrives.

Genres: Plays, Drama, Theatre, Fiction, Death, Adult

96 pages, Unknown Binding

First published December 1, 1995

About the author

Albert Horton Foote, Jr. was an American playwright and screenwriter, perhaps best known for his Academy Award-winning screenplays for the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird and the 1983 film Tender Mercies, and his notable live television dramas during the Golden Age of Television. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1995 for his play The Young Man From Atlanta.

Reviews

[Faith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This felt like it was put together from bits of other plays. Also, there were characters who seemed to speak in strings of clichés.

[Ronald Wise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Will Kidder has worked hard all his life and had a rather successful career until he started getting old and things started falling apart. And after his only son dies, a young man from Atlanta, who claims to have been his son's good friend, seems to be the only one benefitting from Will's accomplishments. A quick read with just enough character depth to make one melancholy about getting old. This play came to my attention from a tribute to Foote's birthday (03/14/1916) on Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac.

[Gabrielle · Rating 2 out of 5]

A funny cross between DEATH OF A SALESMAN and SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION. I'm not sure I liked it, but our discussion in class was good -- we enjoyed the power of the "absent" character.

[Abby · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well written, but uninteresting. I don't see why it merits a Pulitzer.

[Nicki · Rating 3 out of 5]

1995 Pulitzer: I must say,I feel like maybe I missed something in reading this play. It ends abruptly without tying much of the plot together, leaving me with a kind of messy, unraveled feeling. I am going to have to look up some of the things published about this play and why it won the Pulitzer. It was well-written and its characters were well fleshed out, but I think the point of it may have gone over my head. Something akin to Death of a Salesman, perhaps? A man who has dedicated his life to his job in order to provide for his family only to have it all unravel before reaping the true benefits? But then I can't help to think, Death of a Salesman was so much more poignant...

[G. Derek Adams · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm tempted to say 'Death of a Salesman'-lite, but that's not really fair. There are some truly affecting moments in the script - but so much of the sorrow is telegraphed and stock, and the character of Lily Dale made my flesh crawl. There's an interesting dynamic at work where the 'Young Man' never appears on stage, echoing the absence of the main couple's deceased son -- but not sure it's all worth the journey in the end.

[Christopher Madsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Foote is one of my favorite playwrights. He captures the humanity of his characters, even the most minor, in a way that is unique to him. Arrogant and sometimes bullying, Will, and his wife Lily Dale, cope with (or don't cope with) the aftermath of their sons suicide. All the characters inhabit the same space but sail past each other emotionally, mostly because of Wills dominating presence. The young man of the title, who never appears on stage, represents a threat to the story Will has constructed and the others accepted about their son.
a great play. I'm not sure why this one in particular won him the pulitzer, but it's Foote 100%.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

A play about a dysfunctional family that has just enough plot to satisfy me, The Young Man From Atlanta has a dash of Death of a Salesman to it and, in its own way, takes an equally dark view of America and the struggle for the American dream. The dialog feels forced in places, but Mr. Foot does a nice job of offering closure without simple answers. Recommended.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Audiobook) Well developed colorful characters, especially considering how short it is. You get a good sense of the Houston culture and the 1950s social norms. Though I would have liked it a little longer, I did not mind that it was not wrapped up tightly. There is still something left to the imagination, and a lot of reading between the lines.

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

So unenjoyable that I had blocked it from my memory since I saw its curtain descend in 1996. Eleven years was not long enough: it retains the honor of being the most boring thing to win the Pulitzer for drama that I've read or seen.

[Bayneeta · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a big Horton Foote fan. Listened to this around the same time I saw a number of his plays performed at the Goodman.

[Penn · Rating 2 out of 5]

picked this up at the Princeton public library sale shelves b/c it was a Pulitzer winner.

[Branden · Rating 4 out of 5]

you guys, horton foote's really good. it's understated and spare and mildly formulaic, but somehow almost always affecting in some way. would love to see this live.

[Dean · Rating 4 out of 5]

First exposure to Horton Foote and reading plays. Enjoyed it

[Pinky · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very sad play about deception and dishonesty. The son of a wealthy Houston couple dies under mysterious circumstances and the couple is being hounded by a young man who knew their son from his Atlanta boarding house. The play is set in the 1950s and there are large amounts of money being given as gifts and being swindled, totaling closed to $100,000 or more. This is what I learned by checking the inflation calculator: the value of $100,000 from 1955 to 2021 -
$100,000 in 1955 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $1,020,772.39 today. That’s a lot of money.

Everybody is lying to everyone about everything and it just makes you feel empty.

1995 Pulitzer Prize for Drama

[Abdul Alhazred · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's like a collection of playwright tropes; a marriage on the rocks, a death in the family, older man loses his job, health troubles, racism (implied in this case); LATW puts on a compelling performance of unoriginal material that spins its wheels to boot. This is the most slice of life it gets, and like life there are no big lessons, shit just kinda happens. The good performances save the play but I can't for the life of me understand what won the Pulitzer here.

[Jordan Muschler · Rating 2 out of 5]

Failed to hook me in its exposition dump scene, and never quite got me more than mildly interested. These characters are interesting in theory and Foote’s style of dialogue feels extremely thought-through, but there is not enough drama and not enough relevant material to really warrant revivals of this. I am curious if its charm, and perhaps its Pulitzer win, come with familiarity towards Foote’s other works about this family - yet on its own it didn’t do much for me other than distract.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

This play is a slow-acting poison. It starts of out in a very clunky fashion, with massive amounts of exposition, it's power and suffocating sadness do indeed start to grow. It would be easy to dismiss this play as lesser Miller or lesser Albee--and in some ways it is--but there is a poignancy here that cannot be dismissed.

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

A touching play but not as emotionally affecting as expected. It feels like a minor work. Also, I suspect the main characters wouldn’t be viewed with the same amount of sympathy if the play were set in the present.

[AHeld · Rating 3 out of 5]

This play offers no closure to any of the questions it asks. It is a play of loose ends. It's like the author died half way through and then wherever he left off they just wrote "the end" and published it

[Beverlee Jobrack · Rating 5 out of 5]

So powerful. Horton Foote's characters are so well crafted and expressive. Breaks your heart.

[zz · Rating 1 out of 5]

Actually fucking rolling around clutching my stomach howling in laughter that this utter pablum won a Pulitzer

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an undramatic drama, a tale of family relationships and growing old, in which most of the key moments occur offstage or before the narrative begins. The characters appear on the stage to talk about what happened and try to make sense of it all. The story focuses on a couple in their 60s who, despite their comfortable situation in life, are dealing with some painful matters. For one, the man (named Will) has just been informed by his bosses that he is being let go, although he is offered the option of a part-time, consulting role. The couple is dealing with the unexpected death of their son, by drowning, in the fairly recent past. A friend of their son's - he is the young man of the title - turns up, but it is unclear what he wants and the couple is wary of him. What seems pretty clear is that their son was gay and may have committed suicide, but this is never stated openly, and they seem to prefer not knowing the truth about their boy. It turns out that this story is as much about denying reality as it is about facing it. It seems probable that "The Young Man From Atlanta" is more interesting to read or hear than to see on a stage, unless the acting is truly magnificent. I listened to an audio version of it, which was quite good.

[Eneil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bill's friend visits the
Kidders. Con man? Lover? Live
With the side you know.