Long Lost

by Donald Margulies

When troubled Billy appears out-of-the-blue in his estranged brother David’s Wall Street office, he soon tries to re-insert himself into the comfortable life David has built with his philanthropist wife and college-age son. What does Billy really want? Can he be trusted? And how much can family bonds smooth over past rifts? A funny, unsettling, ultimately moving play about the limits of compassion and filial obligation.

Genres: Plays

Kindle Edition

Published February 18, 2025

About the author

Born in Brooklyn in 1954, Donald Margulies grew up in Trump Village, a Coney Island housing project built by Donald Trump's father. Margulies was exposed early to the theatre. His father, a wallpaper salesman, played show tunes on the family hi-fi and, despite a limited income, often took his children to Manhattan to attend Broadway plays and musicals.

Margulies studied visual arts at the Pratt Institute before transferring to State University of New York to pursue a degree in playwriting. During the early 80s, he collaborated with Joseph Papp, and his first Off-Broadway play, Found a Peanut, was produced at the Public Theatre. In 1983, he moved with his wife to New Haven, Connecticut, so that she could attend Yale Medical School.

In 1992, Margulies' career really began to take off when Sight Unseen won an Obie for Best New American Play. Some of his other plays include The Loman Family Picnic; Pitching to the Star; Zimmer; Luna Park; What's Wrong With This Picture?; The Model Apartment; Broken Sleep; July 7, 1994, and The God of Vengeance. Dinner With Friends--which tells the story of a seemingly happy couple who re-examine their own relationship when their best friends decide to divorce--won Margulies a 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. He had previously been nominated for a Pulitzer for Collected Stories, a play about a Jewish writer who is betrayed by her young disciple.

Elected to the Dramatists Guild Council in 1993, Margulies has received grants from Creative Artists Public Service (CAPS), New York Foundation for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. His plays have premiered at Manhattan Theatre Club, South Coast Repertory, The New York Shakespeare Festival and the Jewish Repertory Theatre. He lives in New Haven, Connecticut, where he teaches playwriting at the Yale School of Drama.

Reviews

[Gretta · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book came in the Dramatist Play Service’s book club box, and I really did enjoy reading it. Long Lost begins when David’s estranged brother shows up at his New York finance office. It becomes clear that his brother, Billy, is a manipulative former drug attic, but when Billy reveals that he’s dying, David feels he has to let him stay with him. Immediately, David stirs up tensions within David’s family. Though the writing is beautiful, and there are some really honest moments, particularly when it came to David’s childhood abuse at the hands of his brother, the beats were ultimately familiar. I found the story predictable. Some of that may be that drug addiction does take a certain path, and the ending (which I won’t give away here) didn’t pull any punches. In the end, though, I didn’t feel that Long Lost had a fresh perspective regarding having a family member suffering from addiction. However, as always, so much depends on the performance. With the right actors it could be absolutely brilliant.

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just brilliant.

[Bailey · Rating 2 out of 5]

eh, nothing i haven’t read before