Stage Directions & Spared

by Israel Horovitz

STAGE DIRECTIONS. A man and two women (brother and sister?) meet after attending a funeral (their father's?), a time when so much needs to be articulated and understood. And yet, somehow, they cannot bridge the gulf of self-consciousness that separates them, and can only speak at each other, and via the stage directions which are normally meant to be unheard by the audience. The effect is oblique speech, as though they were present and yet not present, but what is unspoken becomes eloquently clear and, in the end, reveals the deeper truths that direct statement could only hint at. (1 man, 2 women.) SPARED. Viewed as if suspended in time and space, a man recounts the jumble of events and people that are his life. Good, bad, success, failure, happiness, unhappiness all merge into a revealing mosaic as his tale continues, punctuated by taped voices and screams that underscore the irony of his existence. He has had so much, and yet so little; has seen and done so many things, and yet the emptiness consumes all. Repeatedly he has tried to end his life, only to be spared by some turn of fate. In the end we perceive that his life is all life the human condition made real through the random pattern of living which is our lot in a world we never made. (1 man, 1 woman, taped voices.)"

49 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Israel Horovitz has written more than 80 plays, several of which have been translated into as many as 30 languages and performed worldwide. His play Line reached 50 years of continuous performance, off-Broadway, at 13th Street Repertory Theatre.

Horovitz is Founding Artistic Director of Gloucester Stage Company, and of the New York Playwrights Lab. For two decades, he taught a bilingual screenwriting workshop with writers from la Fémis, France’s national film school, and Columbia University’s graduate film program. Has also written or adapted numerous plays for BBC Radio. (Click on link for listing and description of plays.)

He is married to Gillian Adams-Horovitz, former British National Marathon Champion and Record holder, and former USA Track & Field (Masters) Marathon Champion. The Horovitz family divides its time among homes in Gloucester, Massachusetts, NYC’s Greenwich Village, and London’s Dulwich Village. Mr. Horovitz visits France, frequently, where he often directs French-language productions of his plays. He is the most-produced American playwright in French theatre history.