Bøger af Constance Congdon

An adaptation of Gorky's classic black comedy, VASSA ZHELEZNOVA, A MOTHER concerns a family's stern, penny-pinching matriarch who will do anything for her family. "... Dark, invigoratingly sardonic...Constance Congdon's MOTHER is as uncompromisingly savvy as it is bitingly funny... MOTHER is an exhilarating blend of one of Chekhov's dysfunctional provincial families run through the wringer of Joe Orton's iconoclastic comedy. It's also Maxim Gorky through and through, providing a canny look at Gorky as a dramatic bridge between Chekhov and Brecht. Congdon's A MOTHER is adapted from Gorky's play VASSA ZHELEZNOVA...MOTHER [is] as much an enlightening rediscovery as an exciting new play. Vassa, a kind of proto-Mother Courage, is the head of a family one generation removed from serfdom and facing a crisis. The husband with whom she's built a fairly successful peat-mining and tile-making business is dying upstairs. Without a will, all their possessions will pass to their two sons-the uselessly self-pitying Pavel and the slothful, self-indulgent Semyon, a man who can no longer fit into any of his clothes except pajamas. Congdon's dialogue is crisp, her Gorky-derived characters captivating and her wit devilishly sharp..." Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Chronicle

A deeply intelligent, provoking, and witty play, PARADISE STREET wrestles with important questions of class and gender in this country. It takes you for a wild ride through the transformation of several characters dealing with what feminism has done for, and to, their lives.

Comedy / Characters: 5 male, 2 femaleScenery Requirements: Simple setPeter and Madeline have been friends since they were teenagers in Queens. They have Manhattan apartments and separate unsatisfactory sex lives. Though more loving than most couples and searching for partners, they are incompatible: he is gay. Maddi is overweight and drawn to men who treat her badly. He hides behind snappy retorts and skepticism. Maddie's alcoholic mother, Peter's father, lovers, pickups and friends with A

“One of the best playwrights our country, and our language, has produced.” –Tony Kushner“Quirky, disturbing, and inexplicably beautiful theatrical poetry.” –Cary M. Mazer, Philadelphia City Paper“Congdon writes like a woman possessed.” –Nels Nelson, New York Daily NewsAn immensely inventive and challenging writer, Constance Congdon is one of America’s finest playwrights, endowed with great compassion, keen insight and an unfailing comic sensibility. Throughout the plays in her first collection, she demonstrates a range rare in writers in any age, from a somber meditation on life in the post-nuclear age (No Mercy) to madcap social satire (Losing Father’s Body), from an epic historical exploration of love and sexual identity (Casanova) to her most popular play to date (Tales of the Lost Formicans), acclaimed by William A. Henry III of Time magazine as “A travel guide to Middle America conducted by aliens from outer space… If not the best new play of recent years, surely the most imaginative.”Constance Congdon’s plays have been produced throughout the United States and abroad. She has received playwriting fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Rockefeller and Guggenheim foundations, and is the winner of Oppenheimer/Newsday, W. Alton Jones and L/ Arnold Weissberger awards. Congdon, an alumna of New Dramatists, currently teaches playwriting at Amherst College.