ناکتوراما

by Annie Baker, Mahtab Safdari (Translator)

Genres: Plays, Theatre, Drama

130 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2022

About the author

Baker grew up in Amherst, Mass., and graduated from the Department of Dramatic Writing at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. She earned her MFA from Brooklyn College.

Her play Body Awareness was staged off-Broadway by the Atlantic Theater Company in May and June 2008. The play featured JoBeth Williams and was nominated for a Drama Desk Award and an Outer Critics Circle Award. Circle Mirror Transformation premiered off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons in October 2009 and received Obie Awards for Best New American Play and Performance, Ensemble. Her play The Aliens, which premiered off-Broadway at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in April 2010, was a finalist for the 2010 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and shared the 2010 Obie Award for Best New American Play with Circle Mirror Transformation.

Baker's adaptation of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya premiered at the Soho Repertory Theatre in June 2012 and was called a "funky, fresh new production" by a New York Times reviewer. Her play The Flick premiered at Playwrights Horizons in March 2013. A New York Times reviewer wrote, "Ms. Baker, one of the freshest and most talented dramatists to emerge Off Broadway in the past decade, writes with tenderness and keen insight." The play received the Obie Award for Playwriting in 2013.

Baker teaches in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton. She was one of seven playwrights selected to participate in the 2008 Sundance Institute Theatre Lab. In 2011 she was named a Fellow of United States Artists.

Reviews

[JackWilliamRtF]

annie baker is my 100% absolute favorite playwright and has always been my favorite playwright ever since i even knew how to have such an opinion. but this is her weakest play, by far. the elements of what will one day make her great are all present here but they fail to culminate in any meaningful way. skaggs is deeply unlikeable but not in an interesting way like sam is in the flick or jasper is in the aliens. everyone remains flat and unchanged through the entirety of the script until we literally dance the night away, celebrating the fact that maybe, just maybe, we'll never have to talk to skaggs' bitch ass Ever, Ever again

2/5, probably not revisiting this one again any time soon.

[Tom]

Baker said she was going through a period of very high self-hatred when she wrote this one, and oh boy, does it show. Nocturama (both a term for where they keep nocturnal animals and the name of a symbolic videogame), is perhaps her only play that I would call mean-spirited. It is about stasis, not changing, depression, and the ruthless bargaining for light and grace that the American world seems to demand.

Skaggs, the closest thing this play has to a protagonist, is a brutal, deeply depressed, possibly suicidal twenty-something who lashes out with calculated cruelty. He rejects all attempts at care or self-betterment. He searches for insecurities and preys upon them; his foibles are flattened away by a stilted "I'm depressed". Despite this, Baker's command of language and tone, and her equanimity when it comes to broken people, grant this acidic burnout a sort of grace.

Still, the real sympathetic character in Baker's history-haunted play of suburban Vermont is the nerdy, quiet Amanda, who shows up first as a contrapuntal Greek chorus providing historical context for Baker's setting. Only for Skaggs, like a cancerous growth on the play itself, to wrap her into the closed-circuit chamber drama of familial decay he finds himself in. Her historical narration becomes polluted by his presence; her monologues interrupted by calls to him. Her story, and her blackness, grafted to the grey December malaise of Skaggs and his very white family.

That the play ends with Amanda being forced to bear witness to Skagg's mom, Judy, and her long-term boyfriend, Gary, dance to African music as they celebrate Skaggs leaving for a dead end reality TV job in LA, feels like a caustic joke. They have also just given her a portrait of a historical local beauty Amanda is fascinated by (who also used to live in Gary's house), a bizarre and complete conquest of Amanda's narrative. All this familial hemming and hawing, this raw white despair, the Lonerganian catalogs of thwarted men, may be depressing, but is what must be bargained with to see light in America, to see its true face.

And in that final darkness, Amanda— who knows so much of history, of the town she lives in— is forced to bear witness to history's afterbirth: the quiet of the present, the despairing mortar binding the bricks of American stories.

[Will Schmitt]

I loved Skaggs. A rice depth and truthful depiction of a life. The dialogue in this play is just so natural and comes off the tongue so effortlessly it’s incredible. Annie Baker is just the best as always!
I’m curious about if this play’s production rights are out anywhere and if it can be performed? I heard it might not be and I’m not sure why—the play seemed very solid and grounded in such truth like all of her works.

[Charlie Lee]

One of my absolute favourite plays. Nocturama, from the play's title, is a video game in which the hero has to bargain for light on the black market in order to find his way and defeat the evil sorcerer who has stolen the light from the world. This is a very minor story element, but serves as a symbol for the protagonist's battle against depression.

Skaggs is an endearing twenty-something, more concerned about being cool than he should be. In fact, it feels a bit dishonest to call him the protagonist, as each of the characters is complex with their own flaws and battles. Gary is a recovering sex addict, alienated from his patriotic son. Jude is trying to assign meaning to her life from self-help books, yoga and spiritual gurus. Amanda has found meaning in her life by obsessing about a dead poet who killed herself, losing the battle against depression.

Why The Flick was so internationally successful and Nocturama and The Aliens weren't says something about how important building a playwright's profile is in being successful. The Flick is definitely the weakest of those three plays.

[Jojo]

Summary: Skaggs is back home living with his mother, Judy, and her live in boyfriend,Gary. He's depressed due to a recent breakup and just kinda going through the motions. Amanda works at a historical home giving guided tours. Skaggs one day turns up there just to get out of the house and ends up inviting Amanda to come to dinner at his home since he can't stand being alone with his mom and Gary. The two wind up hooking up but he then doesn't call her back. Judy is worried about her son and wants him to engage in this sorta therapy thing she's into so he does indulge her, talking about a memory he had with his ex but then things go south when he mentions getting head on a car ride and his mom sorta freaks out . I mean weird to tell your mom stuff like that but he also told her about giving head to Amanda and not receiving any back so....anyhoo eventually Skaggs winds up taking a job his friend helped him get and heads off to L.A. Amanda returns to the house to give back something she stole and Gary gives her an old photo he found (the house he's living in is also sorta historical). Anyway that's about it.
Review: Not much I can think to say. Another decent play. Interesting enough. Weird relationship this guy has with his mom with all the sex details but anyway yeah I thought it was fine.
Grade: B

[julia barker]

this one out of all of the compilation so far left me feeling like i need to mull it over. still not quite sure. all of these plays are extremely memorable, i will say that much. every character in this is in a state of dissatisfaction, until the ending, which it leaves this ambiguous-maybe false sense of satisfaction, ending before the 'real' sets in again, if you know what i mean? everyone's chasing something/trying to achieve something, but nonetheless not stuck per say but not happy or stable either.

connection with the nightlight/emdr/ nocturama premise with the light was interesting.. but falls flat if its all metaphorical for depression idk.

[Audrey]

baker’s most beautifully observed of location since body awareness. a portrait of a city with history lying in every corner, the importance of curiosity. the characters here were a little less compelling but there were so many fantastic moments and ideas. also reminiscent of body awareness in how it presents a dialogue of worldviews/ideas. the only play i’ve read to feature an elliot smith needledrop so there’s that

[mengwe]

i have so much to say but will start by saying i feel 58% of the way i felt when i finished pillowman so slay annie...okay and also good job w/ dialogue and creating complex characters who i cared about and was with the entire time even though they were all lowkey- nah HIGHkey f**ked up...ESP GARY bruh what the actual...i won't spoil but banger. (not certified) but still a banger...s/o to b for the rec

[Joe]

Endearing story detailing the troubles of a family. The play includes an interesting frame story about the life of a troubled poet that illuminates the themes of the play (as does the titular video game in the play).

[Gareth Davies]

Such an interesting balance between Skaggs’ relationships with Amanda and with Meghan.
So many questions about Gary and his addiction problems. Was he actually a sex addict? Was he addicted to Nocturama?
What is the significance of Nocturama to the rest of the play?
It is hard to determine if Judy is happy. Her son is off the rails and her husband is an addict, but she still seems to love them both so much, is it to her own fault?

[Brooks Whitlock]

big collegiate rep theater vibes

[Wiley June]

whatevs annie

[Jade]

I don’t know what to say, man. This is so good. I just want to read Annie Baker forever… The characters will stick with me for a while. I wish I could see this performed somewhere.

[JCSmith]

4spp, the first time i read this i was like SKIP bc i was fifteen... this is so good. the road head scene?

[julia]

terrible people deserve to know that they’re terrible

[Daniel]

Four desperate people talk past each other. Could be a drama or comedy depending on how it's performed.

[Ethan Washington]

Annie Baker knows how to end a play.

[Charlotte Bartow Fuchs]

the main guy was so incredibly insufferable, i know that was the point but he actually pmo so bad like please sybau for one second

[E7boehm]

Very good play love the girl who gives house tours And the crazy mom and step dad

[Brian McCann]

Best of the first three Vermont plays.

[Lindsay Heller]

This is probably my favorite of the Vermont plays so far. I loved the juxtaposition of the family stuff with the tours of the poet's house. But I love old house tours and I love family drama. So I guess it makes sense that I loved this play.