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Mary Page Marlowe
“A deeply moving new play from Tracy Letts.” —Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune
Known for his complex portrayals of the human psyche, Tracy Letts expands what at first appears to be an intimate snapshot of one woman’s ordinary life into a grand and elaborate portrait play. In a series of elegant, nonchronological scenes spanning the years from 1946 to 2015, the play hopscotches through Mary Page Marlowe’s quiet existence as an accountant from Ohio—complicating notions of what it means to lead a “simple life.”
Known for his complex portrayals of the human psyche, Tracy Letts expands what at first appears to be an intimate snapshot of one woman’s ordinary life into a grand and elaborate portrait play. In a series of elegant, nonchronological scenes spanning the years from 1946 to 2015, the play hopscotches through Mary Page Marlowe’s quiet existence as an accountant from Ohio—complicating notions of what it means to lead a “simple life.”
80 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 12, 2016
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About the author
Tracy Letts
15 books238 followersTracy Letts is an American playwright and actor who received the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play August: Osage County.
Letts was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma to best-selling author Billie Letts, of Where The Heart Is and The Honk And Holler Opening Soon fame, and the late college professor and actor Dennis Letts. His brother Shawn is a jazz musician and composer. He also has a brother Dana. Letts was raised in Durant, Oklahoma and graduated from Durant High School in the early 1980s. He moved to Dallas, where he waited tables and worked in telemarketing while starting as an actor. He acted in Jerry Flemmons' O Dammit!, which was part of a new playwrights series sponsored by Southern Methodist University.
Letts moved to Chicago at the age of 20, and worked for the next 11 years at Steppenwolf and Famous Door. He's still an active member of the Steppenwolf company today. He was a founding member of Bang Bang Spontaneous Theater, whose members included Greg Kotis (Tony Award-winner for Urinetown), Michael Shannon (Academy Award-nominee for Revolutionary Road), Paul Dillon, and Amy Pietz. In 1991, Letts wrote the play Killer Joe. Two years later, the play premiered at the Next Lab Theater in Chicago, followed by the 29th Street Rep in NYC. Since then, Killer Joe has been performed in at least 15 countries in 12 languages.
In 2008, Letts won a Tony and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for August: Osage County. It had premiered in Chicago in 2007, before moving to New York. It opened on Broadway in 2007 and ran into 2009.
His mother Billie Letts has said of his writing, "I try to be upbeat and funny. Everybody in Tracy's stories gets naked or dead." Letts' plays have been about people struggling with moral and spiritual questions. He says he was inspired by the plays of Tennessee Williams and the novels of William Faulkner and Jim Thompson. Letts considers sound to be a very strong storytelling tool for theater.
Letts was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma to best-selling author Billie Letts, of Where The Heart Is and The Honk And Holler Opening Soon fame, and the late college professor and actor Dennis Letts. His brother Shawn is a jazz musician and composer. He also has a brother Dana. Letts was raised in Durant, Oklahoma and graduated from Durant High School in the early 1980s. He moved to Dallas, where he waited tables and worked in telemarketing while starting as an actor. He acted in Jerry Flemmons' O Dammit!, which was part of a new playwrights series sponsored by Southern Methodist University.
Letts moved to Chicago at the age of 20, and worked for the next 11 years at Steppenwolf and Famous Door. He's still an active member of the Steppenwolf company today. He was a founding member of Bang Bang Spontaneous Theater, whose members included Greg Kotis (Tony Award-winner for Urinetown), Michael Shannon (Academy Award-nominee for Revolutionary Road), Paul Dillon, and Amy Pietz. In 1991, Letts wrote the play Killer Joe. Two years later, the play premiered at the Next Lab Theater in Chicago, followed by the 29th Street Rep in NYC. Since then, Killer Joe has been performed in at least 15 countries in 12 languages.
In 2008, Letts won a Tony and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for August: Osage County. It had premiered in Chicago in 2007, before moving to New York. It opened on Broadway in 2007 and ran into 2009.
His mother Billie Letts has said of his writing, "I try to be upbeat and funny. Everybody in Tracy's stories gets naked or dead." Letts' plays have been about people struggling with moral and spiritual questions. He says he was inspired by the plays of Tennessee Williams and the novels of William Faulkner and Jim Thompson. Letts considers sound to be a very strong storytelling tool for theater.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
February 8, 2017
4.5 As anyone who has seen/read Letts' Pulitzer Prize-winning 'August: Osage County' knows, he is one of the few contemporary male playwrights capable of creating strong, multidimensional female characters (there were seven dynamite roles for actresses in that). In his latest offering, he presents the story of a fairly 'ordinary' woman in 11 non-chronological scenes, in which the titular character ages from 10 months to 69 years, to be played by six different actresses (7, if one includes - presumably - the doll for the earliest incarnation!) Each of the scenes is a gem, some of them quiet, but powerful, some full-throttle emotional tornadoes - but I am not quite sure they add up to more than the sum of their parts.
June 17, 2017
I loved it. The concept is brilliant. 11 scenes, 11 moments from one woman's life that have the greatest impact on her. The scenes are in non-chronological order which makes it interesting to see how the scene before and after inform one another. It's also interesting to see different actresses in the same role and how they would have to use the other scenes, the other Mary Page's, to inform their own scene. I thought it was a beautiful portrait of a life.
August 10, 2022
A play about the "ordinary" life of one woman that shows no life is actually ordinary. The play is a non chronological depiction of moments from Mary's life across her entire lifespan. Quietly profound.
June 8, 2017
tracy letts (pulitzer prize-winning playwright [august: osage county]) is quite adept at mining human failings and psychological underpinnings. mary page marlowe is a convincing glimpse into the life of its titular character. set over seven decades, letts's play skips through different eras of mary page's life — moving forward and backward in time. while mary's life is thinly sketched (given its brevity), we're treated to several singular moments from childhood onward. as mary struggles to discover herself, we, too, are left yearning to understand both her and her often conflicting impulses. letts injects mary page with a believable humanity, rounded out as it is by the requisite faults, foibles, and failures. mary page marlowe offers a glimpse into the days of an average woman, one whose life is peppered by the very instances we seldom have the chance to discover in the people we encounter every day.
ohhh, sweetheart, you're so sensitive. you're gonna have to toughen up some, mary page. the world is a mean old place.
February 19, 2018
A fragilidade da existência
Tracy Letts é um dos dramaturgos mais instigantes em atividade nos Estados Unidos atualmente. Escreveu peças como August: Osage County e Killer Joe – ambas adaptadas para o cinema. Seu texto é ácido, pertinente em seu comentário aos EUA contemporâneo e as dinâmicas que unem e separam as pessoas. MARY PAGE MARLOWE, montada pela primeira vez em 2016, é o melhor que seu teatro tem a oferecer.
A obra traz 11 momentos na vida da personagem-título, uma contadora, que acompanhamos desde os 10 meses de idade aos 69 anos. São momentos das mais variadas grandiosidades na existência de uma pessoa comum – estão lá as alegrias e tristezas, amores e frustrações, filhos, amigos e desconhecidos. Acompanhamos fora da ordem cronológica a vida dessa mulher.
As cenas se sucedem criando um acúmulo de momentos que culminam num diálogo melancólico sobre uma colcha de retalhos: “É muito frágil”, diz Mary ao atendente de uma lavanderia. Talvez ela não se refira apenas à colcha, mas à vida mesmo. As pequenas vinhetas somam momentos de fragilidade que moldam a protagonista. As lacunas também representam muito – uma cena que termina com um telefone tocando ecoa uma anterior, uma conversa com uma enfermeira. Letts criou um quebra-cabeças delicado e profundo.
“Você não é a pessoa que é”, diz a analista de Mary.
“Não”, responde a protagonista.
“Então quem você é?”.
“Eu não sei”.
Como se fosse fácil responder a essa pergunta. Cena após cena, Letts mostra a construção humana de Mary Page Marlowe – seus erros e acertos – e, ao final, é a sensação de termos acompanhado uma vida inteira, e termos feito uma nova amiga.
Tracy Letts é um dos dramaturgos mais instigantes em atividade nos Estados Unidos atualmente. Escreveu peças como August: Osage County e Killer Joe – ambas adaptadas para o cinema. Seu texto é ácido, pertinente em seu comentário aos EUA contemporâneo e as dinâmicas que unem e separam as pessoas. MARY PAGE MARLOWE, montada pela primeira vez em 2016, é o melhor que seu teatro tem a oferecer.
A obra traz 11 momentos na vida da personagem-título, uma contadora, que acompanhamos desde os 10 meses de idade aos 69 anos. São momentos das mais variadas grandiosidades na existência de uma pessoa comum – estão lá as alegrias e tristezas, amores e frustrações, filhos, amigos e desconhecidos. Acompanhamos fora da ordem cronológica a vida dessa mulher.
As cenas se sucedem criando um acúmulo de momentos que culminam num diálogo melancólico sobre uma colcha de retalhos: “É muito frágil”, diz Mary ao atendente de uma lavanderia. Talvez ela não se refira apenas à colcha, mas à vida mesmo. As pequenas vinhetas somam momentos de fragilidade que moldam a protagonista. As lacunas também representam muito – uma cena que termina com um telefone tocando ecoa uma anterior, uma conversa com uma enfermeira. Letts criou um quebra-cabeças delicado e profundo.
“Você não é a pessoa que é”, diz a analista de Mary.
“Não”, responde a protagonista.
“Então quem você é?”.
“Eu não sei”.
Como se fosse fácil responder a essa pergunta. Cena após cena, Letts mostra a construção humana de Mary Page Marlowe – seus erros e acertos – e, ao final, é a sensação de termos acompanhado uma vida inteira, e termos feito uma nova amiga.
February 18, 2018
I'm such a fan of Tracy Letts that when this play didn't really speak to me, I read it again as soon as I'd finished it, attempting to better focus on what the emotional effect would be of a staged production - but I still never properly felt engaged. I couldn't pinpoint how each individual moment was chosen as crucial enough to warrant inclusion as one of only eleven scenes comprising an entire lifetime. Certainly the device of having the title character move back and forth in time, showcasing different moments of her life, holds dramatic potential in the hands of a strong actress, but I found it impossible to read Mary Page Marlowe and not think its' full power can't be accessed on the stagnant page. Equally impossible, unfortunately, not to return to that dirty word, device.
November 8, 2024
Gosh I do love Tracy Letts’ writing. I don’t know what it is about it that just makes ordinary scenes so magical!
This play is strangely thrilling whilst also comforting? I was left with so many questions unanswered, almost as if this was half a play and I was waiting for the other half - but in a good way! Like I didn’t want it to end.
Quite enthralling and I read it in one sitting. I would love to see this played out.
Perhaps I would’ve enjoyed a bit more of an exciting ending / thrown a twist at the end. But I definitely didn’t hate the ending!
Some great scenes in there. So simple yet so effective and interesting.
This play is strangely thrilling whilst also comforting? I was left with so many questions unanswered, almost as if this was half a play and I was waiting for the other half - but in a good way! Like I didn’t want it to end.
Quite enthralling and I read it in one sitting. I would love to see this played out.
Perhaps I would’ve enjoyed a bit more of an exciting ending / thrown a twist at the end. But I definitely didn’t hate the ending!
Some great scenes in there. So simple yet so effective and interesting.
November 29, 2023
If you're looking for big action, big conflict don't read this. But just the simplicity, the things happening to the main character, all of which is absolutely nothing that couldn't happen to every single human on the planet, somehow makes it that much more moving. You read between the lines, and figure out things that happened that aren't exactly spelled out. I was surprised to find it ending but so happy I read it.
May 28, 2021
it is a very moving portrait of a specific kind of American sadness & regret that still translates very universally... i like the playwrights use of non-chronological time to piece together this incredibly complex character,
May 27, 2025
Why would you ever get upset about anything, any decision, any dilemma, any job, any relationship, any anything, why lose sleep over it if it’s all just accidental? Someone else could have written my diary.
June 21, 2017
Love Letts's dialogue!
August 17, 2017
OK but rather incongruous. Sort of snip its of a life.
January 8, 2018
Abi is playing Mary Page Marlowe at Theater Basel! I look forward to seeing the real play.
March 29, 2018
Tracy Letts has done it again captured a wonderful album of "snapshot scenes" of middle America in the late 20th century. I hope to see a performance soon!!!
March 20, 2020
Review soon.
Don't start your Letts reading here.
Don't start your Letts reading here.
August 17, 2021
3.5 stars
October 27, 2022
The play is quite hard to read at first, you really need to put the scenes in chronological order to understand all the stuff that isn’t said but once it’s analyzed, it is quite an amazing piece!
May 3, 2023
An ambitious story with gripping dialogue. I would love to see this production staged someday.
August 13, 2025
Very strong writing, some really moving monologues, great female characters and a non linear structure make this a very interesting play from a great playwright and a worthy chapter in his canon.
March 25, 2017
Conceptually speaking, Mary Page Marlowe is a promising play. Through a series of non-linear scenes, Letts produces a singularly penetrating picture of a fairly ordinary character. To some degree, there are no secondary or tertiary characters. As the title implies, Mary Page Marlowe is Mary's play.
Nevertheless, I am left disappointed. Mary Page Marlowe is surprisingly short, and that is part of the play's problem. While each scene is compelling unto itself, collectively, they do not produce a satisfying play. There is something distinctly impressionistic about Letts approach, and with more room and perhaps more scenes, it could have worked.
Nevertheless, I am left disappointed. Mary Page Marlowe is surprisingly short, and that is part of the play's problem. While each scene is compelling unto itself, collectively, they do not produce a satisfying play. There is something distinctly impressionistic about Letts approach, and with more room and perhaps more scenes, it could have worked.
April 20, 2017
I give this a 3.5. The play consists of short scenes not in chronological order of the title character's life. The scenes on their own are very well written and compelling but I didn't feel the overall arch was spectacular. But maybe that is what he was going for? I'm used to more of a dramatic flair from this brilliant playwright. But maybe the brilliance in this piece is the simplicity of dealing with trauma. Overall, a fine play!
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews