Grasses of a Thousand Colors

by Wallace Shawn

“Among living American writers for the theater today, Wallace Shawn is among the most respected by his peers and championed by serious critics.”—Don Shewey “The play is bound to delve further into the world that Shawn began to explore so precipitously nearly thirty-five years one filled with ideas, wherein the action is the domestication of cruelty.”— The New Yorker Grasses of a Thousand Colors is a poetic epic that tells the story of a scientist (Ben), his wife (Cerise), and his two mistresses (Robin and Rose), as they fend for their lives in a world much like ours, yet one savagely close to extinction. Due to the scientific manipulation of the world’s crops, a destructive system for which Ben is partly responsible, there is very little nourishment left to be had, except for those most privileged and connected. Despite the dying off of most of the world, these characters manage to survive, at times tasting the good life, admiring the beauties of nature, feasting on animalistic sex, and finding love. The play raises issues of redemption, forgiveness, and responsibility as it recounts a somewhat passionate, erotic adventure story. Wallace Shawn is the author of Our Late Night (winner of the OBIE Award for Best Play), Marie and Bruce , Aunt Dan and Lemon , The Designated Mourner , The Fever , and the screenplay for My Dinner with Andre , in which he starred. Grasses of a Thousand Colors , Shawn’s first full-length play in ten years, will be produced in the United Kingdom and the United States in 2009. Shawn is a well-known film and television actor. He resides in New York City.

Genres: Plays, Drama, Fiction, Theatre

112 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Wallace Shawn, sometimes credited as Wally Shawn, is an American actor and playwright. Regularly seen on film and television, where he is usually cast as a comic character actor, he has pursued a parallel career as a playwright whose work is often dark, politically charged and controversial. He is widely known for his high-pitched nasal voice and slight lisp.

Reviews

[Jesse Keeter · Rating 3 out of 5]

A strange play, somewhat beyond my reckoning. I’ll stew in it for a while, I’m sure, as it has already haunted my daydreams during my time between it’s covers. It’s of a sort I can’t quite decipher. This is not a review, it is an admittance of confundity. My faith in the playwright carried me through, and ultimately im glad I experienced it. I’ve never quite read anything like this. If you figure it out, lemme know. Would have loved to see it live and be swept away by the performance. Undoubtedly the superior way to experience. Especially with the captain on board the ship, and Tilly as first mate. Wild.

[Sofia · Rating 2 out of 5]

One of those things which is very well-written, seems to point toward doing something that's very me, and then does something different, making me glad I can do the very me thing myself, but also disappointed I didn't see the very me thing done by someone else.

Ultimately rather dated.

[Laleh · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a weird play! Dystopian, erotic and flat out bizarre. Would love to see the stage performance.

[Jeff Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A flat-out masterpiece: Wallace Shawn's most extreme, complex, and innovative play. Superficially, it's a mix of dystopian nightmare, anthropomorphic fairy tale, and sexual fantasia, but plot descriptions here only scratch the surface. It combines and expands on themes of Our Late Night, Marie and Bruce, and The Designated Mourner - and like those plays is an urgent vision of the way we live now.

[Kristýna Marková · Rating 3 out of 5]

well..this was the most bizarre play i have ever read. don't know how to feel about it.

[Mary Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surreal play which toys with eroticism, fairy tales, dystopia and death.

[Daniel Schulof · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first Shawn. Stylistically similar to the surrealism in Kafka on the Shore and Wind-Up Bird Chronicles.

[Brendan · Rating 5 out of 5]

what did he mean by that? inspired.

[Rick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This may be Wallace Shawn's weirdest play, which is saying a lot. In any case, it's another breakthrough from a writer whose works have been a series of breakthroughs. This one, though, has something I don't think the others do: a series of collisions of three completely different kinds of stories: a dystopian sci-fi story, a pornographic fairy tale, and a lost-love-quadrangle of some kind. The complexity of the result is so rewarding that I wouldn't be surprised if this ultimately ends up being considered Shawn's greatest play -- too early to say that yet, though (right now, critics seem pretty confused by it -- and several audience members at the performance I saw, which was over three hours long, left during the two intermissions).

[Jeanmarie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Does anyone have a clue what this play is about? (Yes, yes, I know I could look it up but I don't want someone to explain it to me quite yet - I'd rather hear from another confused reader.) Monologue after monologue chronicling the end of the world as experienced by a set of really self-absorbed wealthy sex maniacs? Is it about food shortages, is it some kind of eco-criticism of -- what? Land use? Help.

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not quite sure what to make of this sometimes very funny, sometimes very disturbing play. I think it's about corporate chicanery, the privileges of obscene wealth, bio-engineering of the food supply, narcissism, and death, and I know it's about genitalia, sex, eating, and puking. I'm not even sure whether I enjoyed it or not, but I'm glad I read it. Wallace Shawn is a strange man.

[Kristy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this play, although I feel like much of it slipped past me somehow. A distopian fable of famine, sex, genetic modification, sex, relationships, sex, cats, sex, and cat sex. Very readable, despite being a little confusing in its aims, and impossible to read without hearing Wallace Shawn's voice narrating all the male dialogue.

[Rachel Y · Rating 3 out of 5]

Murakami mind fuck in 84 pages... Definitely curious to see this staged, and eager to read some reviews / analysis so I can maybe understand WTF just happened. I don't like cat sex. Perhaps this was about survival, marital discontent, sexual freedom, nature, end of times, women as cats, miraculous hell if I know...

[Jv · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bizarre, disturbing, surreal, multilayered, perverse fairy tale.

[Jen · Rating 1 out of 5]

More and more when I'm reading I think, "Who is this author talking to?"

Wallace Shawn is not talking to me.

Nope.