John Guare: The War Against the Kitchen Sink, Vol. 1

Booklist

The three new entries in Smith and Kraus’ Contemporary Playwrights Series each contain noteworthy plays otherwise available only in staple-bound acting editions....Each is a gem...

Library Journal

The early works found in these two volumes are "anti-establishment" in form, content, or both. This is true of all the plays written by Guare and McNally in the 1960s, when they began their careers. Today they are among the most important living American playwrights. Included in the Guare collection are five early works from what has been called his neoabsurdist phase. As the subtitle indicates, Guare, best known for The House of Blue Leaves and Six Degrees of Separation, believes that the playwright must eschew "kitchen-sink naturalism" and take the audience into a dangerous terrain, namely, the tension between surface and inner realities. The volume has an important seven-page preface by the playwright, which alone makes it a meaningful purchase for comprehensive modern drama collections. McNally, whose recent award-winning works include Love! Valor! Compassion! and Master Class, generally sticks to a more naturalistic, presentational style and a deeper probing of internal and interpersonal emotions, often among gay men. And Things That Go Bump in the Night (1964) and Where Has Tommy Flowers Gone (1971) are zany and seem a bit dated, but they still probe more deeply than much of that period's dramatic output. They likewise should be available in comprehensive drama and gay studies collections, but libraries that own The Ritz and Other Plays (1976), which contain both, can pass on this edition.-Howard E. Miller, M.L.S., St. Louis