What's Wrong With This Picture?

by Donald Margulies

L.A. Weekly writes: "Donald Margulies' very Jewish is full of surprises Opening at the end of shiva, the play is the story of grief-stricken dry-cleaner Mort, whose wife, Shirley, died the week before after choking on a tough piece of moo shoo pork, leaving a house full of extra furniture because she was in the middle of redecorating. His all-too-loving but increasingly less supportive family is telling him 'enough already, it's time to live your life.' Once Mort is left uncomfortably alone with his teenage son, Artie, the play begins to take its odd turns which happily removes it from the path of Neil Simon family farce. As he convinces Artie to wear his dead mother's sexiest dress, Mort seems to be losing his mind, while Artie does his best to humor him. Then the sudden arrival of a very much alive Shirley explodes everything. The play continues to take every unexpected path as the three try to cope with the situation among themselves and with the rest of the family. Margulies skillfully tosses us back and forth between hilarity and sentimental pain, all the while never leaving gaps of logic in this most illogical situation."

Genres: Plays

72 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2000

About the author

Born in Brooklyn in 1954, Donald Margulies grew up in Trump Village, a Coney Island housing project built by Donald Trump's father. Margulies was exposed early to the theatre. His father, a wallpaper salesman, played show tunes on the family hi-fi and, despite a limited income, often took his children to Manhattan to attend Broadway plays and musicals.

Margulies studied visual arts at the Pratt Institute before transferring to State University of New York to pursue a degree in playwriting. During the early 80s, he collaborated with Joseph Papp, and his first Off-Broadway play, Found a Peanut, was produced at the Public Theatre. In 1983, he moved with his wife to New Haven, Connecticut, so that she could attend Yale Medical School.

In 1992, Margulies' career really began to take off when Sight Unseen won an Obie for Best New American Play. Some of his other plays include The Loman Family Picnic; Pitching to the Star; Zimmer; Luna Park; What's Wrong With This Picture?; The Model Apartment; Broken Sleep; July 7, 1994, and The God of Vengeance. Dinner With Friends--which tells the story of a seemingly happy couple who re-examine their own relationship when their best friends decide to divorce--won Margulies a 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. He had previously been nominated for a Pulitzer for Collected Stories, a play about a Jewish writer who is betrayed by her young disciple.

Elected to the Dramatists Guild Council in 1993, Margulies has received grants from Creative Artists Public Service (CAPS), New York Foundation for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. His plays have premiered at Manhattan Theatre Club, South Coast Repertory, The New York Shakespeare Festival and the Jewish Repertory Theatre. He lives in New Haven, Connecticut, where he teaches playwriting at the Yale School of Drama.

Reviews

[Shawn Deal · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this play. Part ghost story, almost a magical realism story, this was a fun and interesting play that was trying to leave you with a message at the end. A very enjoyable comedy.