The Maderati

by Richard Greenberg

Focusing on the self-centered concerns of a rather inbred group of Manhattan "yuppies," the action of the play deals with the ultimately hilarious misunderstandings which arise when one of their number, a frustrated, somewhat overweight and definitely suicidal poet named Charlotte, is temporarily detained in a mental hospital. The news of Charlotte's plight is misunderstood by the couple to whom it is reported (Dewy, an ambitious would-be photographer, and Ritt, her stockbroker husband, who is given to sudden "epiphanies") and assuming that Charlotte has died they eagerly impart this privileged information to the others in their set. This leads to a series of inventive and brightly satiric scenes as the "news" is passed along (with incremental exaggeration) from couple to couple, and culminates in an impromptu get-together honoring the "deceased" at which Charlotte herself shows up as a surprise guest! Among the others involved in the antic doings are a literary couple, Chuck and Rena (who first reported Charlotte's absence); a sexually ambivalent publisher who affects an English accent; a young poet who tends to fall asleep without warning; a man-crazy feminist named Cuddles Molotov; and the current object of her desire, a "hunky" and faithless method actor, Danton, whose primitive grunts apparently have an aphrodisiac effect on the other women present, and whose hilarious obtuseness gives a fine point to the overall irony of the play.

72 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

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

[Bryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This made me laugh so much, goodness. All these people are so terrible and so funny! Their language is very much of the 80s, but the self-absorption and the craziness it leads to seems less timebound to me; I never knew these exact people but I certainly knew people in the 90s and the 00s who had the same sort of unfounded belief in their own specialness, or the same sort of obsession with their self-proclaimed role as the Saviour Of Their Friend Group.