A life in theatre: Wallace Shawn, American playwright and actor | Culture | The Guardian - 0 views
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Speaking of an earlier piece, A Thought in Three Parts, David Hare says that its central section, which dramatises an orgy, "is the only successful piece of pornography in the modern theatre" - stage directions call for 19 orgasms to be shared among four characters - "and it's also sexy and very funny.
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In Hare's view, Shawn is America's leading contemporary dramatist. "Aunt Dan and Lemon, The Fever and The Designated Mourner - these are the three major American plays of our time."
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"When we did Our Late Night at the Public Theatre in New York in 1975, people booed." It was the first professional performance of one of his plays. "One night, they started mooing, like cows. People talked during the play, expressing their sense that it was worthless trash." Joseph Papp, the artistic director of the Public, called him "a dangerous writer. A very rare species. He tells people things about themselves that they don't want to know."
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