Overview
This anthology, the second volume of Smith and Kraus' publication of the complete work of A.R. Gurney, includes: Children, The Wayside Motor Inn, The Middle Ages, The Dining Room, What I Did Last Summer, and Richard Cory.Synopsis
This anthology, the second volume of Smith and Kraus' publication of the complete work of A.R. Gurney, includes: Children, The Wayside Motor Inn, The Middle Ages, The Dining Room, What I Did Last Summer, and Richard Cory.
Library Journal
Gurney has carved out a niche for himself in the landscape of Americana, though with these plays he did not have the success he deserved in the commercial theater. This collection of six early works includes his best known, The Dining Room (1982), as well as Children, Richard Corey, The Middle Ages, The Wayside Inn, and What I Did Last Summer. A wry observer of our collectively dysfunctional culture, Gurney invokes a nostalgia for the past, which seems more stable, restrictive, and orderly than the present. At the same time, his plays resonate with longing for a freedom that only the future can bring. They lament the loss of the Father as a strong unifying figurewhat could be more American?and chart the painful compromises we make to achieve some stability and some freedom. They also seek a fluidity of form, time, and place to express these ideas, which are successfully balanced in three of the plays here. The others allow us to see the artist struggling to achieve that balance. Recommended for contemporary drama collections in public and academic libraries.Thomas E. Luddy, Salem State Coll., Mass.