PERESTROIKA & The "Plays Are Literature Campaign." Collected plays by LUCY WANG, JON SPANO, BARBARA ALFARO

TCG, Theatre Communications Group, published Tony Kushner’s PERESTROIKA, the second part of Angels of America in 1994.  Would book reviewers mention a book of this play, a huge cultural breakthrough?  As a book publicist and playwright, I was excited about this idea, as was the publisher, who created The “Plays are Literature Campaign.” Packages of books with materals supporting this book as literature were sent. A couple weeks later, I began my follow-up. Was the exclusion of published playscripts arbitrary?

“Everyone knows, plays are only reviewed  in performance.” But in England, play scripts in books are reviewed. Some are reviewed both IN PERFORMANCE and when the book is published. Why? Playscripts are accepted, like poetry, as a form of  LITERATURE!  The Plays are Literature Campaign showed Angels in America was a unique literary achievement published in two books.  Perestroika was a worthy exception to an arbitrary editorial rule. Why this play? AIDS, at that time, was an unprecedented epidemic in the U.S., which affected Americans of many races, classes, genders and religions. The script’s examination of our national identity, through the lens of this disease, surely merited a review or acknowledgement of the playscript’s existence in a book? 

In 1994, more book editors answered their desk phones. Some agreed Perestroika was literature but emphatically stated, “our paper only covers plays in performance.”  BUDGET was mentioned as a reason, along wih Expertise. As one editor explained, “Once we hired a university professor, skilled in reading scripts and it cost 800!”I did not buy this excuse. (Professors are the only competent reviewers? Why not offer a book of plays to editorial staffs? (Former lit and drama majors might love the chance for a printed review, paid a base rate or not. And if not staff, “dramatists” are widely available.(defined as a playwright or person who makes plays.) In that capacity, I reviewed a couple times for a national paper.

“Audiences for scripts in book form are too small why that category has long been eliminated.”  was another comment. The same idea was cited, when The New York Times recently announced it will no longer be reviewing major books of poetry.  Since the pandemic, the national audience for poetry has expanded, as has audiences for playwrighting and books of scripts. Poets and playwrights are celebrities. (New video games releases are reviewed with an assumed large audience, as are the prospects of polo ponies. Shall  America’s serious poets, publishing lifetime achievements, find an environmental sponsor?)

Of course, coverage is linked with advertising and though the audiences for books of playscripts is  growing, like novels, there is only seasonal advertising. Budgets don’t compare to those of streaming services for movies and mini-series. Media is flooded incessantly with “sky is the limit” advertising budgets for ongoing dramatic products.Yet the audience for new plays and books of  new playscripts persists, an argument demonstrated by Hamilton‘s success. Televised performances grew audiences and fanned interest in the script of Hamilton. That play is read as literature across America. 

The playwright is a skilled promoter who championsthe reading of books of plays. His scripts are bought in books by librarians, schools, theaters, performers, playwrights and the general public. Lesser known playwrights and scripts might have a local production, and air on public access TV. Occasionally, especially if successful in England, a play will show up on PBS and audiences may buy a book if they can locate it in the U.S. Only a fraction of plays written in the U.S., will ever be produced and fewer will be published in book form.  Our rising dramatic writing talent, often have a miniseries in mind. They must. Our media doesn’t support plays as literature.

Months after the conclusion of The Plays Are Literature Campaign, I learned The Los Angeles Times DID mention the publication of the book of  PERESTROIKA.  (Probably not linked with my efforts). My guess is that publishers of theater books may lack the budgets of producers of streaming fare, yet both are interested in dramatic storytelling. Someone at The  LA Times Book Review may have made that connection.

I see our major and minor areas of dramatic writing as differing in their objectives. The streaming medium must rivet audiences emotionally. For instance, a “car chase” is  standard in many commercial products because it’s been tested and humans “on alert” don’t turn off until the action is resolved. Formulas also aim to please audiences, as do many plays in theaters. Literature allows the unfettered search for meaning that may be embodied in idiosyncratic play structures and language. Whether seen in-person or experienced on the page, these dramatic vehicles can offer unique experiences unseen on commercial screens. (Occasionally independent film makes it out of the dwindling art houses to become an “event” on a screening service.)

Books offer structures and styles of classic drama that can be a revelation. Much of the dialogue actually differs from the accepted form of  “contemporary realism” in the U.S. This language, derived from the 1950s American  Actor’s Studio, was popularized in seminal films, like “On the Waterfront.” Required of all screenplays and by most producers of plays in the U.S.,this dialogue style can inhibit verbal expression, a marvel even in translation of some classics.( Lost to many new playwrights not enrolled in academic programs.)

An explorer of plays as literature  might encounter circular plays w/political content, (Brecht’s Mother Courage), (Fugard’s Boesman and Lena). Mythology and life meeting in engrossing folk story adaptations, such as  (Brook’s The Congress of the Birds). Surrealism is the lens of (Cocteau’s The Infernal Machine) and (Williams’ Camino Real). Hyper-realism is the style of (Shepherd’s Buried Child) and the Rock saga of  Tooth in Crime). (Jarry’s absurdist Ubu Roi) is with us now, in his “potato head” dictator which prefigured Hitler and our “Orange Menace.” These scripts (even in translation) are written with language that fits the vision.) Free or improvised verse, fractured song lyrics, street lingo, nursery rhyme, even computer lingo, can have a strange, startling effect. There are many exciting plays from around the world. In the U.S. many have disappeared, rarely performed or read outside academia. Such scripts are literature waiting to be rediscovered.

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The spirit of “plays as literature” is alive in books of new scripts. Usually not “experimental,” they are for public school, regional club performances and for actors exploring audition pieces.  Short plays are more often performed than full-length (some playwrights have files of the same play by length–10 minutes, 30 minutes, one-act play of 45 minutes or full-length, one to two hours.) Below are examples of  plays for actors and schools by playwrights who write varied formats. The catalogues of TCG and The Drama Bookshop have more. 

Lucy Wang‘s award-winning full-length play JUNK BONDS, was the beginning of a career writing and performing her scripts. I saw and loved her Silver Menace, a witty short one-woman play of about 45 minutes (a 10 minute version on NetScripts). Both plays, besides being funny, have much to offer from the viewpoint of a working woman, who is Chinese, trying to succeed on Wall Street. and in Hollywood. Wang, who cares about new audiences, is also an educator. Besides being an Instructor at The Dramatists Guild Institute of Dramatic Writing and at escript.ws, her collection, Plays for Youth,  includes the full-length Teen Mogul, the short comedies in Gray Matters, and Playing with a purpose: Monologues for Kids Ages 7-15. She has also compiled Audition Monologues for Young Women, a rare resource. Her most recent play, Good Mourning America, is now available.

Jon Spano who began as a dancer-writer, recently added filmmaker to his resume. A favorite play of mine in his Anthology of Short Plays & Monologues: Comedies and Dramas for Diverse Casts is Second Son, which appeared in 2018 in Urban Artist’s Collective one-act play festival.  It is a story of a father’s meeting with his deceased son’s war buddy. It is less dark than intriguing, as the father learns about the son he thought he knew. Spano’s plays are surprising, mixing farcical absurdity with situations real and concerning, depending on how you look at it. His chameleon viewpoint embraces diversity of all kinds racial, sexual, generational, in an entertaining “whatever” spirit.  

Some of his plays scripts included are: Ripple Effect    Spano shines as a clearly talented playwright. (Erika Karp, Village Times)

“fascinating and moving” (broadwayworld.com).

         ”moves exquisitely from comedy to drama” (theatre2nytimes.com).

                “an interesting study in celebrity” (oobr.com).