|
|
MERRITT ABRASH (1930 - ) |
|
Nationality: USA Email: n/a Website: n/a |
|
|
Literary Agent: n/a |
Mr Abrash has a doctorate from Columbia in Public law & Government, and has written articles on diplomatic history, art history and utopian literature.
Plays by Merritt Abrash
Film Club, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | - - - | |||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #90 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
|
| ||||||
Genre: | One Act | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 4 | Female | 4 | ||
Parts other: | 1 unseen narrator | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | Four young middle-class couples hold a periodic meeting of their film club. This time the films are eight unidentified reels purchased at a junk shop. When the films are shown [note: no actual films or projection equipment are necessary they prove to be supernatural depictions of the club members' secret realities (adultery, living a lie about a servile job, etc.) and future disasters (a violent fight between two members, the breakdown of the most respected, etc.) By the end of the evening, which had begun with so much seeming warmth and humour, the members' lives and relationships are shattered and there Is only one hope left for comfort. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
|
Outbreak Of World War I | ||
| 1st Produced: | - - - | - - - | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #91 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
|
| ||||||
Genre: | Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 8 | Female | 4 | ||
Parts other: | doubling posible | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | An absurdist treatment of the underlying causes of World War I and the events from the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand to the early days of the war. Everything is firmly based on actual history, but replete with farcical twists and unorthodox motivations which impart the hypocrisy, blindness and plain stupidity of many of the attitudes held and decisions made by the diplomats and generals. One-liners and sight gags are woven into the actual development of events, bringing out the inherent absurdity of a catastrophic war arising from human foolishness and thoughtlessness; some brief changes of tone neat the end of the play make it plain that there was really nothing funny about it at all. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
|
Postscript | ||
| 1st Produced: | 1970 | |||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #92 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
|
| ||||||
Genre: | Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | 1 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | also as one act Yale Drama Festival; various college and community theater productions | |||||
Synopsis: | Henry thinks he is the sole survivor of the nuclear war and has taken psychological refuge in grotesque and bitter humour about the idiocy of mankind. When Susan appears, mourning the dead with conventional sentiments, Henry's merciless black humour almost drives her away, but one more survivor appears: Paul, once boss of a small company who now interprets the destruction of mankind as a judgement by the biggest boss of all. What a boss says goes, and therefore, decrees Paul, the accidental survivors are not meant to upset the judgement by producing. new human life. To Susan this Is inhuman and to Henry dogmatic nonsense, but Henry's Inability to emerge from behind his mockery and scorn leads to a tragic conclusion at once unexpected and inevitable. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
|
