The New York Times wrote about Christopher Durang: “In a career spanning more than 40 years, he established himself as a hyperliterate jester and an anarchic clown.”
His gift, the critic Frank Rich of The New York Times wrote in 1985, was a “special knack for wrapping life’s horrors in the primary colors of absurdist comedy.”
Theatre Palisades Membership Entertainment and the Theatre Palisades Actors’ Troupe will present an evening of Durang’s scenes and monologues, Remembering, on Wednesday, November 20, at the Theatre, at Pierson Playhouse, 941 Temescal Canyon Road. Refreshments in the lobby start at 7 p.m. and followed by the show at 7:30 p.m. There is a suggested donation of $10. For more information, call (310) 454-1970.
Durang, who died this past April at age 75, is a playwright, whose works include: A History of the American Film (Tony nomination, Best Book of a Musical, 1978), The Actor’s Nightmare, Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You (Obie award; off-Bway run 1981-83), Beyond Therapy (on Broadway in 1982, with Dianne Wiest and John Lithgow), Baby with the Bathwater (Playwrights Horizons, 1983), The Marriage of Bette and Boo (Public Theatre, 1985; Obie award, Dramatists Guild Hull Warriner Award), Laughing Wild (Playwrights Horizons, 1987), Durang/Durang (an evening of six plays at Manhattan Theatre Club, 1994, including the Tennessee Williams’ parody, For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls), Sex and Longing (Lincoln Center Theatre production at the Cort Theatre, 1996, starring Sigourney Weaver), and Betty’s Summer Vacation (Playwrights Horizons, 1999; Obie award).
The writing sublime, the acting outstanding, the scenes well-rehearsed, which means this evening at the theater will be delightful.