The House of Blue Leaves

Last updated

The House of Blue Leaves
The House of Blue Leaves.jpg
Poster by James McMullan
Written by John Guare
Date premiered1966
Place premiered Eugene O'Neill Theater Center
Waterford, Connecticut
Original languageEnglish
SubjectA zookeeper longs to write songs for the movies as his AWOL son and the Pope arrive in New York City.
Genre Black comedy
SettingA bar and an apartment in Queens, New York, 1965.

The House of Blue Leaves is a play by American playwright John Guare which premiered Off-Broadway in 1971, and was revived in 1986, both Off-Broadway and on Broadway, and was again revived on Broadway in 2011. The play won the Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best American Play and the Obie Award for Best American Play in 1971. The play is set in 1965, when Pope Paul VI visited New York City.

Contents

Overview

The play is set in Sunnyside, Queens, New York City, New York, in 1965, on the day Pope Paul VI visited. The black comedy focuses on Artie Shaughnessy, a zookeeper who dreams of making it big in Hollywood as a songwriter. Artie wants to take his girlfriend Bunny with him to Hollywood. His wife Bananas is a schizophrenic and destined for the institution that provides the play's title. Their son Ronnie, a GI scheduled for deployment to Vietnam, has gone AWOL. Three nuns are eager to see the pope and end up in Artie's apartment. A political bombing mistakenly occurs in the apartment.

Productions

The first act of The House of Blue Leaves was first staged in 1966 at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut. According to Jane Kathleen Curry, (Assistant Professor of Theater at Wake Forest University) Guare "rewrote the second act many times and attributes part of his difficulty to his lack of technical skill in writing for a large number of characters in a full-length play." [1]

The House of Blue Leaves opened on February 10, 1971 Off-Broadway at the Truck and Warehouse Theatre, where it ran for 337 performances. Directed by Mel Shapiro, the cast included Frank Converse, Harold Gould, Katherine Helmond, William Atherton, Anne Meara and Robert Burton.

A revival directed by Jerry Zaks was staged Off-Broadway at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, opening on March 19, 1986, then transferring to Broadway at the Vivian Beaumont Theater on April 29, 1986, where it played five months before transferring again to the Plymouth Theatre on October 14, 1986, closing on March 15, 1987, for a total run of 398 performances. The Off-Broadway cast included Swoosie Kurtz (Bananas), John Mahoney (Artie), Stockard Channing (Bunny), Christopher Walken (Billy), Ben Stiller (Ronnie, in his stage debut), and Julie Hagerty (Corrinna). Danny Aiello replaced Walken as Billy when the production moved to Broadway. Christine Baranski joined the production on June 24, 1986, as Bunny, and Patricia Clarkson joined the production on June 3, 1986, as Corrinna. [2]

It won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Revival. It was also nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play.

A 2011 Broadway revival was staged by David Cromer at the Walter Kerr Theatre. Starring Ben Stiller (Artie), Edie Falco (Bananas), Christopher Abbott (Ronnie), and Jennifer Jason Leigh (Bunny), the production began previews on April 4, opening on April 15 for a limited 16-week engagement. [3]

Television

Directed by Kirk Browning and Jerry Zaks, the play was staged at the Plymouth Theatre in 1987 with Swoosie Kurtz, John Mahoney, Christine Baranski, and Ben Stiller specifically for a broadcast on the PBS series American Playhouse . The telefilm was broadcast in May 1987. [4] [5] [6] [7]

The film adaptation was shot before an audience, [8] with minicams.

Critical reception

Clive Barnes, in his review of the 1971 Off-Broadway production for The New York Times wrote: "You will have noticed, I presume, that comedy has taken on a hysterical edge. The laughter is manic, and the world is awry. Few worlds are more awry than John Guare's, whose play, 'The House of Blue Leaves,' opened last night at the Truck and Warehouse Theater. Mr. Guare's play is mad, funny, at times very funny, and sprawling." [9]

The Variety reviewer of the 2011 revival wrote: "Guare’s iconic play not only holds up, it still sets the bar for smart comic lunacy.... Guare is famous for the zany plots that illustrate his surreal visions of what passes for modern civilization.... But the key to the play lies beyond these apartment walls, in the broader framework of the unsettled period of the mid-Sixties, when America was still reeling from the assassination of JFK and just becoming aware of what was going on in Vietnam." [10]

Awards and nominations

1971 production

1986 production

Swoosie Kurtz (winner)
Stockard Channing (nominee)

2011 production

Related Research Articles

<i>Six Degrees of Separation</i> (play) 1990 play by John Guare

Six Degrees of Separation is a play written by American playwright John Guare that premiered in 1990. The play was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edie Falco</span> American actress (born 1963)

Edith Falco is an American actress. Known for her roles on stage and screen she has received numerous accolades including four Primetime Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and five Screen Actors Guild Awards as well as a nomination for a Tony Award.

The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards given since 1956 by The Village Voice newspaper to theater artists and groups involved in off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway productions in New York City. Starting just after the 2014 ceremony, the American Theatre Wing became the joint presenter and administrative manager of the Obie Awards. The Obie Awards are considered off-Broadway's highest honor, similar to the Tony Awards for Broadway productions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Guare</span> American playwright and screenwriter (born 1938)

John Guare is an American playwright and screenwriter. He is best known as the author of The House of Blue Leaves and Six Degrees of Separation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Swoosie Kurtz</span> American actress (born 1944)

Swoosie Kurtz is an American actress. She is the recipient of an Emmy Award and two Tony Awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jerry Zaks</span> American stage director (born 1946)

Jerry Zaks is an American stage and television director, and actor. He won the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play and Drama Desk Award for directing The House of Blue Leaves (1986), Lend Me a Tenor (1989), and Six Degrees of Separation (1991) and the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical and Drama Desk Award for Guys and Dolls (1992).

The Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play is an honor presented at the Tony Awards, a ceremony established in 1947 as the Antoinette Perry Awards for Excellence in Theatre, to actresses for quality supporting roles in a Broadway play. The awards are named after Antoinette Perry, an American actress who died in 1946. Honors in several categories are presented at the ceremony annually by the Tony Award Productions, a joint venture of The Broadway League and the American Theatre Wing, to "honor the best performances and stage productions of the previous year."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MCC Theater</span> American theater company

MCC Theater is an off-Broadway theater company located in New York City. The theater was founded in 1986 by artistic directors Robert LuPone, Bernard Telsey and William Cantler. Blake West joined the company in 2006 as executive director. MCC opened its current location in Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, as The Robert W. Wilson MCC Theater Space, on January 9, 2019.

The New York Drama Critics' Circle is made up of 21 drama critics from daily newspapers, magazines and wire services based in the New York City metropolitan area. The organization is best known for its annual awards for excellence in theater.

Mel Shapiro is an American theatre director and writer, college professor, and author.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">58th Tony Awards</span> 2004 awards ceremony

The 58th Annual Tony Awards were held June 6, 2004 at Radio City Music Hall and broadcast on CBS television. Hugh Jackman was the host.

The Mineola Twins is a play by Paula Vogel with music by David Van Tieghem, which premiered Off-Broadway in 1999.

The 51st Annual Tony Awards was broadcast by CBS from Radio City Music Hall on June 1, 1997. "Launching the Tonys" was telecast on PBS television. The event was hosted by Rosie O'Donnell. The awards ceremony moved away from Broadway for the first time in 30 years. As Radio City Music Hall is much larger than any Broadway theater, this allowed members of the general public to attend the ceremony.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">48th Tony Awards</span> 1994 awards ceremony

The 48th Annual Tony Awards was broadcast by CBS from the Gershwin Theatre on June 12, 1994. The hosts were Sir Anthony Hopkins and Amy Irving.

The 43rd Annual Tony Awards, which honor achievement in the Broadway theatre was held on June 4, 1989, at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre and broadcast by CBS television. The host was Angela Lansbury, making her fifth appearance as host, more than any other individual.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jayne Houdyshell</span> American actress

Jayne Houdyshell is an American actress. Known for being a prolific character actor in theater, film, and television, Houdyshell has received numerous accolades including a Tony Award, two Obie Awards, and a Drama Desk Award.

The House of Blue Leaves is a 1987 television play adapted from the John Guare play of the same title.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Cromer</span> American actor and director

David Cromer is an American theatre director, and stage, film, and TV actor. He has received recognition for his work on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and in his native Chicago. Cromer has won or been nominated for numerous awards, including winning the Lucille Lortel Award and Obie Award for his direction of Our Town. He was nominated for the Drama Desk Award and the Outer Critics Circle Award for his direction of The Adding Machine. In 2018, Cromer won the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical for The Band's Visit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Sadoski</span> American actor (born 1976)

Thomas Christian Sadoski is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as Don Keefer in the HBO series The Newsroom (2012-14) and as Matt Short in the CBS sitcom Life in Pieces (2015-19).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bernard Gersten</span> American theatre producer (1923–2020)

Bernard Gersten was an American theatrical producer. Beginning in the 1960s through the early 2000s, Gersten played a major role in shaping American drama and musical theatre.

References

  1. ↑ Curry, Jane Kathleen. "The Plays" John Guare: A Research and Production Sourcebook, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002, ISBN   0313312524, p.50
  2. ↑ "'The House of Blue Leaves' Broadway 1986" playbillvault.com, accessed November 14, 2015
  3. ↑ Gans, Andrew. "'House of Blue Leaves' Revival, With Ben Stiller and Edie Falco, Begins on Broadway April 4" Archived April 17, 2011, at the Wayback Machine playbill.com, April 4, 2011
  4. ↑ "The House of Blue Leaves". imdb.com. Retrieved November 14, 2015.
  5. ↑ Drake, Silvie (May 25, 1987). "TV Review : The Force Is Still With 'House Of Blue Leaves". Los Angeles Times .
  6. ↑ "The House of Blue Leaves Cast and Crew". tv.com. Retrieved November 14, 2015.
  7. ↑ Roberts, Jerry (2009). "Jerry Zaks". Encyclopedia of Television Film Directors. Scarecrow Press. p. 640. ISBN   978-0810863781.
  8. ↑ "The House of Blue Leaves (tv)". paleycenter.org. Paley Center . Retrieved November 14, 2015.
  9. ↑ Barnes, Clive. "Theater: John Guare's 'House of Blue Leaves' Opens', The New York Times, February 11, 1971, p. 54, ISSN   0362-4331
  10. ↑ Stasio, Marilyn. "Review: ‘The House of Blue Leaves’" Variety, April 25, 2011

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.