Key/Tone Clusters

by Joyce Carol Oates

The Key and Tone Clusters are two one-act plays by 2009 Man Booker Nominee Joyce Carol Oates.

Genres: Plays, Audiobook

Audiobook

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Joyce Carol Oates is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. Her novels Black Water (1992), What I Lived For (1994), and Blonde (2000), and her short story collections The Wheel of Love (1970) and Lovely, Dark, Deep: Stories (2014) were each finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. She has won many awards for her writing, including the National Book Award, for her novel Them (1969), two O. Henry Awards, the National Humanities Medal, and the Jerusalem Prize (2019).
Oates taught at Princeton University from 1978 to 2014, and is the Roger S. Berlind '52 Professor Emerita in the Humanities with the Program in Creative Writing. From 2016 to 2020, she was a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where she taught short fiction in the spring semesters. She now teaches at Rutgers University, New Brunswick.
Oates was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2016.
Pseudonyms: Rosamond Smith and Lauren Kelly.

Reviews

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

#popsugarreadingchallenge prompt 8: upside down image on the cover

Two short radio plays with a real punch. Both of these were very moving and also amusing and entertaining.
In the first story a couple seems to meet in a bar in a holiday resort. They way the female character skips and slides around the obnoxious, pompousness of the male character made me both smile and want to cry. The underlying racism was so appalling, in part because it was so familiar.
The reveal at the end made it all so much worse too.

In the second story the parents of a man involved in a tragedy. Their blindness to the 'facts' presented to them by the interviewer is so very sad and moving. The way the interviewer bullies them with complicated convoluted questions is also very moving - these two bewildered people facing a really horrible reality never stood a chance.

Very touching and disturbing plays, both of them. Worth reading, without a doubt.

[cypher · Rating 4 out of 5]

a bit confusing because i was missing context about the references, especially for Tone Clusters (with the incredibly “difficult” questions the parents of the accused were getting asked), but i think i got the idea.
overall, the short plays were interesting.

[Terry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting

[Tuxlie]

The Key and Tone Clusters are two one-act plays by 2009 Man Booker Nominee Joyce Carol Oates. The Key: a hilarious perverse encounter between a vacationing suburban housewife, recently separated from her husband, and a prosperous businessman. Tone Cluster: a chilling trig-comedy that takes the form of an interview between a middle-aged, middle-class American couple and the media. A L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring: Edward Asner, Hector Elizondo, Don Reed, Joyce Van Patten and JoBeth Williams.

[Jay French · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short refreshing couple of radio plays. The LA Theater Works production contributed greatly to the stories. The first story was a conversation between vacationers in St. Kitts, a housewife looking at change, and a businessman looking for a woman. The second story was an interview of a married couple involved in a tragedy. Both were played with the right amount of humor and pathos, although I preferred the story behind the second.