New Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2000

Library Journal

The six recent American plays in this anthology have all enjoyed some theatrical success, thanks in part to their ear for dialog. Like earlier entries in the "New Playwrights" series, founded in 1998, these productions range across genres and were not necessarily staged in New York City. Among them, Lepidus, a veteran theater columnist and former theater lecturer, selected Stephen Adly Guirgis's Jesus Hopped the "A" Train, in which a death-row inmate finds God (with a satirical twist); Brian Mori's Adult Fiction, a funny and touching study of the older generation's failure to pass on wisdom to the younger; Don Nigro's Quint and Miss Jessel at Bly, a witty, disturbing ghost story that responds to Henry James's The Turn of the Screw; and Charles Smith's Knock Me a Kiss, a historical drama exploring the relationship among W.E.B. Du Bois, Countee Cullen, Jimmy Lunceford, and Du Bois's daughter. This quite readable collection has something for everyone; take your pick! For larger drama collections, especially in universities supporting a theater department.-Thomas E. Luddy, Salem State Coll., MA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.