Four Plays: A Thought in Three Parts / Marie and Bruce / Aunt Dan and Lemon / The Fever

by Wallace Shawn

This first collection of Wallace Shawn's plays from the seventies and eighties brings together A Thought in Three Parts, Marie and Bruce, Aunt Dan and Lemon, and The Fever - four incisive and provocative works that have disturbed theatergoers on both sides of the Atlantic. Shawn's themes include sex, historical guilt, the conflict between high and low culture, and the effort to define the self, all described in a remarkable, attentive language. Brilliant and biting, his plays are sometimes horrifying, sometimes hilarious, but never, ever dull.

Genres: Plays, Drama, Fiction, Theatre

228 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Wallace Shawn, sometimes credited as Wally Shawn, is an American actor and playwright. Regularly seen on film and television, where he is usually cast as a comic character actor, he has pursued a parallel career as a playwright whose work is often dark, politically charged and controversial. He is widely known for his high-pitched nasal voice and slight lisp.

Reviews

[Gregory Butera · Rating 4 out of 5]

Subversive, depraved, thought provoking and powerful plays about often undiscussed adult themes of desire, sexuality, aggression, selfishness, class, status and privilege, and how they play out in relationships. I hope to see one of them performed live one day. Was interesting to read them.

All four plays are written with a strong voice and are meant to challenge the audience. Looking for a jolly night at the theater? Not with these plays. No, they perhaps would tittilate, but also shock and disgust, maybe horrify...I could imagine long conversations and debates from the audiences as they emerge from the dark theater, heads shaking, wondering what they had just experienced. Shawn's writing is often deliberately repetitive, demonstrating the boring mundanity of the lives we live. I was alternately shocked, bored, disturbed, intrigued and puzzled while reading all of them. I'd guess that was what the author hoped to do in his audiences as well.

Aunt Dan and Lemon is still making me think. Will have to read it again I think. It's about a girl reminiscing about a favorite aunt who happened to be heavily right wing and praised the Nazis for their efficiency and Kissinger for his decision making powers. The Fever is one of the more effective things I've read to point out how privileged many of us are in our society, and uncomfortably points out how many have to suffer to enable such comfort.

A Thought in Three Parts was famously shut down by the vice squad upon its first performance in London, and was not put on in the US for decades following its script reading. Both It, and Marie and Bruce, a play about one night in the life of a bored married couple, were both shocking and depraved, completely over the top with sexual aggressive themes, and at the same time while such action is going on the dialogue is purposefully stilted, comically mundane, turning what must be a spectacle on stage into something confusingly dull by the characters dialogue. And I mean that in a good way. Both plays were purposely contradictory.

The more I write about these four plays the more I wonder why I liked reading them. But yet I did. They gave me a lot to think about despite being shocked, bored, disturbed, intrigued and puzzled.

[Gabriel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a big fan of Wally Shawn. As a human being, and as an author. I performed A Thought in Three Parts, the second act, for an all-nite bedroom theater I did some six years ago. It is hilarious. I didn't appreciate The Fever until I heard Wally Shawn himself performing it. All of these plays seem like they were meant to be read, not performed. In the introduction Mr. Shawn makes a point to espouse the opposite.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five stars it is; the majority of those stars are for Aunt Dan & Lemon. Which is not to say the other plays aren't worth a read or even a production. Shawn's plays are freighted with his typical concerns (and they are compelling and urgent), but Aunt Dan & Lemon stands out as one of his best in terms of expression of content and form.

[Rhiannon · Rating 1 out of 5]

hated all four of 'em

[Miri Gifford · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had already read The Fever, so I'm rating this collection excluding that. To be totally honest, I felt out of my depths with Marie and Bruce and A Thought in Three Parts; they were surprisingly nasty, obviously on purpose, but I wasn't sure I understood what Shawn was trying to say. Aunt Dan and Lemon was fascinating, leading me pretty far in one direction before I realized it wasn't at all what I thought it was. As I'm thinking about it, I half wish I hadn't read The Fever before this; I think it may have been even more powerful if I'd encountered it for the first time in the context of this collection, immediately following Aunt Dan and Lemon.

Actually . . . I'm starting to feel like I should read the whole thing again (it goes very quickly), but with less space between each play. I don't know if they're intended to accompany each other, but looking back on the first two after having read the last two, now, I think that might help.

[Albie]

Four Plays: A Thought in Three Parts, Marie and Bruce, Aunt Dan and Lemon, the Fever by Wallace Shawn (1998)

[Becca Stokes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I wrote these plays.