A Prelude to a Kiss and Other Plays

by Craig Lucas

This collection brings back into print one of Craig Lucas’ best known and enduring works, Prelude to a Kiss , which was both a hit on Broadway and a popular motion picture. Missing Persons , an updated version of Lucas’ first play, is also included in the collection, along with Three Postcards , an offbeat and uniquely imaginative free form musical play.

Prelude to a Kiss
“It is rare to find a play so suffused with sorrow that sends one home so high.” –Frank Rich, New York Times
“Lucas zaps you into a fantasy land with thoughtfulness and buoyant grace. A sensitive meditation on immortality, commitment and the mysteries of the heart.” – Seattle Times
“Absolutely charming and immediately endearing…a fairy-tale adventure into the human heart.” – The News-Harold

Missing Persons
“An expressly theatrical, resonant metaphor for the way memory can cripple. What Lucas does so well is find a uniquely whimsical expression for the cataclysmic menace and hostility lurking in the prose of everyday life.” –New York Times
“A truly intelligent play, one that is literary and heartfelt and beautifully written, a dramatic rarity in these or any times.” –New York Post

Three Postcards
“Understated and minimalist in style, the play blends casual dialog, clever lyrics and warmly melodic music to explore the inner thoughts and tensions of its characters.” – New York Daily News
“Gertrude Stein would have enjoyed this one.” – New Yorker


Craig Lucas is a playwright, screenwriter and director. His plays include Prelude to a Kiss, Reckless, Blue Window, God’s Heart, The Singing Forest and Small Tragedy . His screenplays include Longtime Companion , The Secret Lives of Dentists and The Dying Gaul , which he also directed. Mr. Lucas’ awards include the L.A. Drama Critics Award, an OBIE Award for Best Play and Best Director, and the Excellence in Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Genres: Plays, Drama, Theatre

300 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2000

Reviews

[Erik Tanouye · Rating 2 out of 5]

Got this at the Community Bookstore in Windsor Terrace.

[Stuart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lucas is one of the more interesting dramatic writers of the bottom quarter of the 20th century. His plays are an evocative mix of deeply human, fantastically absurd, stylistically daring and yet utterly relatable human experience. PRELUDE TO A KISS is a classic- funny and romantic and saw; MISSING PERSONS is equally as bittersweet, taking the somewhat tired premise of a family Thanksgiving as the setting for family drama, and re-inventing it with a supporting cast of living ghosts; THREE POSTCARDS is like a chamber musical chick flick version of "My Dinner With Andre" and pulls at heart strings even as it amuses for tremendous wit and repartee between three good friends whose lives are played out in flashbacks and forward glances, even as the dinner they share plays out in real time. There's something about Lucas' work that charms and challenges at the same time- a rare combination- and he refrains from the usual post-modern tricks of being shocking or derivative, preferring to re-invent the normal and mundane to show us just how significant and profound the act of living and loving can be.

[Waylon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love me some Craig Lucas!