As Bees in Honey Drown

by Douglas Carter Beane

Book annotation not available for this title.

Genres: Plays, Drama, Theatre, Read For School

72 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Douglas Carter Beane has written the screenplays for To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar; Advice From a Caterpillar (Best Film, Aspen Comedy Festival, Best Feature, Toyota Comedy Festival) and Skinner's Eddy. His plays include As Bees In Honey Drown (Outer Critics Circle John Gassner Playwriting Award, Drama Desk Best Play Nomination); The Country Club (LA Times Critics' Choice & Dramalogue Awards); Music From A Sparkling Planet; Advice From A Caterpillar (Outer Critics Circle Award Nomination); White Lies; Devil May Care and Old Money. His new musical, The Big Time (with music and lyrics by Douglas J. Cohen) was just produced by Drama Dept. The Little Dog Laughed which transferred from Second Stage Theatre was his Broadway debut. Beane wrote the book for Xanadu, a stage musical adaptation of the 1980 film of the same name, adding new plot twists and humor parodying the original movie. Beane won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical. In 2011, Beane was hired to 'doctor' the book for the musical Sister Act alongside Bill and Cheri Steinkellner for which he was nominated for a Tony. Beane wrote the book of the Broadway Musical Lysistrata Jones and rewrote the book for a new adaptation of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella. The Nance, a new play for Lincoln Center, starred Nathan Lane and directed by Jack O'Brien. Beane has also revised the libretto for the Metropolitan Opera's new production of the operetta Die Fledermaus which will be performed in 2013- 2014. Beane is currently the artistic director of the Drama Dept. Theater Company in New York.

Reviews

[Luke Reynolds · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although a biting satire on fame-chasing and the extravagances we paint on ourselves to appear larger than life, there's a sad underbelly to As Bees in Honey Drown that resonated with me while I was reading it. Sometimes we aspire to be bigger, to taste the fame that seems so close yet so far. But in our desire to become that shining star, we forget who we are.

[Laura Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can't wait to use a monologue from this as an audition piece. What a weird little funny play about the pitfalls of our own ambition. I loved that the dialogue disintegrated towards the end, each scene flowing between multiple conversations, one right into the other, reframing everything Alexa said in the first act.

[Michael Ben Silva III · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is I think my favorite play. I first saw it in my first year of college, and then I went to every subsequent performance they did of it. Reading it now over 15 years later was a delight, because I could still hear and see those performances I loved so much play out in the text. What a banger of a play.

[Nadiah Cooper · Rating 4 out of 5]

I knew nothing about this play before reading it and I'm glad I didn't. It is a tight story filled with ups and downs and wonderful treatises on fame and artistry. I hope to see this on stage someday.

[Brian McCann · Rating 3 out of 5]

So 1990s. Lots of pithy vignettes with outlandish characters entering the lives of mere NYC mortals.

[Reed Hickerson]

GREAT

[sina · Rating 5 out of 5]

i loved this play. i would love to go out with alexa. and i wish her the best. what a fabulous character

[Ronni Schweitzer · Rating 4 out of 5]

gives Anna delvey vibes

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cleverly written play. The building of a scam craftily portrayed.

[William Cornwell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Part comedy and part drama, this play examines a con artist, Alexa Vere de Vere, who is the "queen bee" of the play and preys on the gullibility and desire for fame of up-and-coming artists. Once an aspiring writer, she long ago abandoned her dream and instead seeks "fame without accomplishment." We watch her con Evan, a young writer who has just published his first novel, in the first act, and in the second act we see him investigate Alexa's past and plot his revenge.

The first act moves along at a good pace. Alexa commands our attention like the starlets she mimics: Liza Minnelli, Audrey Hepburn, et al. The unfolding of her con in the first act offers the most sustained dramatic interest of the play. The second act drags at times as Evan tries to discover who the real Alexa is, and the play would have been stronger if it pared back the Evan's interviews with various people from Alexa's past.

Thematically, the play is most interesting in tackling the question of how artists may have to navigate between commercial and artistic imperatives, and at what point their desire for fame and financial success becomes less about getting their art before an audience and more about wanting attention and wealth as ends in themselves.

One question that the play raised in my mind at the end but doesn't explore is whether fiction writers who use real people, especially people they know personally, as models for fictional characters are using or exploiting those people. The same question arises with essay or blog authors who write about friends and family. Is Evan exploiting Alexa at the end of the play, just as she exploited the people she conned? Perhaps Alexa brought this upon herself and deserves her comeuppance, but the more general question remains as to writers are running a con game when they gain people's confidence and then write about them without their knowledge or permission.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

The lust for fame is portrayed in all its hollow glory by the main character of this comedy who embodies all the cartoonish aspects of an even more effusive Auntie Mame, but is devilishly clever in ways of deception and gain. A young writer's appetite for more in his career is satisfied by the menu of choices shown him by Alexa Vere De Vere, a woman who pops into his life and promises him a grand buffet of glamour and fame and money. This is written with grand verve and the play's stage direction of past and present and scenes occurring at the same time is totally visual in the mind's eye as read. A funny punch in the gut to those that seek that 15 minutes in the spotlight.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fine play, and the first I've read of Douglas Carter Beane's. However, the play suffers from something many plays do, in that the rising conflicts are more interesting than the resolution. It is a rare playwright that can wrap up his own stories as well as he can create them. Beane's antagonist, Mrs. Vere de Vere, finds herself caught incredibly easily, then again later in the book. For all her cunning plotting and conniving, it is unfortunately a little lacking.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this for an audition and what can I say: it's a good play. You can see the intermission reveal coming a mile away, but other than that it is a stong piece of writing, and a charming one at that.

[Brian · Rating 1 out of 5]

Is it just me, or is Douglas Carter Beane a boring/stereotypical/uber-predictable writer. No wonder he's commercially successful.

[David Jay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slight and silly, with some very funny lines.

[Bruno Enciso]

YEET!

[Antoinette Averlais · Rating 5 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed.