Selected Plays

Hailed as "a creative genius" ("TLS") and "a singular American visionary" ("New York Times"), James Purdy may be best known for his remarkable novels, but he is also an astonishing playwright who has written nine full-length and twenty short plays. Theater companies from Chicago to Antwerp, Belgium, have also dramatized four of his novels (including "Malcolm" and "I Am Elijah Thrush"). Purdy is one of the few contemporary American writers capable of writing tragedy - the great Tennessee Williams called him "a uniquely gifted man of the theater." This collection presents four riveting and beautifully crafted works: "Brice", "The Paradise Circus", "Where Quentin Goes", and "Ruthanna Elder". All of them explore a range of emotional and familial tangles, as fathers betray their sons and squander their inheritance; siblings compete for parental affection; and husbands and wives try to salvage meaning from their broken marriages.
Written in Purdy's authentic idiom, which Paul Bowles called "the closest [we have] to a classical American colloquial," the plays also tackle matters like American fundamentalism with such breathtaking observations, they overcame Williams with "a totally personal feeling of pain and desolation." "Selected Plays" includes a foreword from Michael Feingold, noted theater critic of the "Village Voice". It also reproduces Purdy's own artistic statement, several of his best drawings, and notes on reading and performing his plays.