The Dazzle

by Richard Greenberg

The "Dazzle" is a play by Richard Greensburg. This play is based on the lives of the Collyer brothers, Homer and Langley, who bodies were discovered in a decaying brownstone in Harlem in 1947.

Genres: Plays

72 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Richard Greenberg was an American playwright and television writer known for his subversively humorous depictions of middle-class American life. He had more than 25 plays premiere on Broadway, off-Broadway, and off-off-Broadway in New York City and eight at the South Coast Repertory Theatre in Costa Mesa, California, including The Violet Hour, Everett Beekin, and Hurrah at Last. Greenberg is perhaps best known for his 2002 play Take Me Out.

Reviews

[Martin Denton · Rating 2 out of 5]

The play begins at the start of the 20th century in the crowded but still very respectable home of Homer and Langley Collyer. Langley is a pianist of great temperament and, apparently, genius: he can detect things like a note played "1/64 of a tone flat." Homer is a former admiralty lawyer who serves now, as he says, as his "brother's accountant," though caretaker is clearly more accurate. Langley is eccentric bordering on mentally ill, and certainly anti-social by any normal definition; the particular situation that Homer needs to attend to as the play begins takes the form of Millie Ashmore, a lively, lovely heiress who has decided she is in love with Langley and is setting a trap to win him for a husband.

Homer resists the notion at first, powerfully; but then he sees some merit in it, possibly because he likes the idea of such a wealthy sister-in-law, and also possibly because he has fallen in love with her himself. At any rate, plans for the wedding go forward, despite Langley's obvious unfitness for one. I don't think it should be too big a surprise that the marriage doesn't come off, and in Act Two, some years having passed, the Collyers have settled into lonely bachelorhood, with Langley sinking deeper and deeper into what is surely severe mental illness, obsessing endlessly and alarmingly over objects thrown into the apartment by taunting neighbors, and Homer stoically and selflessly keeping Langley's fragile world intact.

It's a fairly creepy, unhappy play, not up to Greenberg's usual standard.

[Marc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Based on the Collyer brothers, sons of a physician, recluses and hoarders, that lived together in Harlem, in the house they inherited when their mother died. I was not familiar with their story. The house they lived in is no longer there but a gated park now stands in its place. Some aspects of the story remind me of Grey Gardens (i.e. By the early 1930s, the Collyer brothers' brownstone had fallen into disrepair. Their telephone was disconnected in 1917 and was never reconnected as the brothers said they had no one to talk to. Because the brothers failed to pay their bills, the electricity, water, and gas were turned off in 1928. They took to warming the large house using only a small kerosene heater. For a time, Langley attempted to generate electricity by means of a car engine. Langley would fetch their water from a pump in nearby parks. Their only link to the outside world was via a crystal radio that Langley made.)

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

A kooky, creepy take on Coward. A lot more fun if you read the Wikipedia article in conjunction with it. Wild. Greenberg struggles a bit to give it a plot but I imagine with the right actors, this thing sings.