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The Marriage of Bette and Boo
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by Christopher Durang
Directed by Scott Alan Evans
October 18 to 20, 2003
Florence Gould Hall
55 East 59th Street
NYC
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| SYNOPSIS |
It?s family fun! Three decades of marriage, divorce, alcoholism, nervous breakdowns and death ? all blended in a unique mix of irony, humor and farcical brilliance by one of America?s most gifted modern playwrights.
?Durang, the humorist and satirist, has rarely written anything funnier or more serious than this mordant comedy.? The New Yorker
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| CAST/CREW |
Eve Michelson
Bette Brennan
Cynthia Harris
Margaret Brennan, her mother
James Prendergast
Paul Brennan, her father
Jenn Thompson
Joan Brennan, her sister
Kate Ross
Emily Brennan, her sister
Scott Schafer
Boo Hudlocke
James Murtaugh
Karl Hudlocke
Cynthia Darlow
Soot Hudlocke
Gregory Salata
Father Donnally/Doctor
Jason Rebler
Piano/Percussion
Dawn Dunlop
Production Stage Manager
David Toser
Costume Consultant & Designer
Juliet Chia
Lighting Designer
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| PRESS |
Backstage
Christopher Durang has always had a unique theatrical voice. His heady mix of wit, anger, and pathos... [ read more]
WOLF ENTERTAINMENT GUIDE
The Actor's Company Theatre (TACT) has launched its new season, its 11th, and the initial result, a... [ read more]
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| DRAMATURGY |
"I feel particularly close to THE MARRIAGE OF BETTE AND BOO and to the excellent production the play received at Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival. The play itself has a rather long history. I wrote the first draft of the play - a 45 minute, one-act version - when I was still a student at Yale School of Drama, and it was produced there my final year (1974).
The play had the same characters and the same number of stillborn children, but otherwise was much more sketch-like, and its emotional impact was far more elliptical. For instance, the scene at Thanksgiving, Bette's phone call, Matt's dinner with the dead grandparents, the divorce scene, the final hospital scene - all these were not in the early version.
The one-act version received a very good student production directed by Bill Ludel, and featured (among others) Kate McGregor-Stewart as Bette, John Rothman as Boo, Franchelle Stewart Dorn as Emily, Walton Jones as Fr. Donnally, and Sigourney Weaver as Soot.
At Yale my work had been controversial up to his point, especially BETTER DEAD THAN SORRY which featured Sigourney Weaver singing the title song while receiving shock treatments. BETTE AND BOO, though seemed to win over a far larger audience to my work (at Yale, that is), and was said to have more of a sense of compassion in the midst of the dark humor.
There were subsequently four other productions (that I know of ) of the one-act version. The first was at Williamstown Theatre's Second Company, directed by Peter Schifter. Then there was a summer Yale cabaret version, directed by Walton Jones, and featuring Christine Estabrook as Bette, Charles Levin as Boo, and (ah-hem) Meryl Streep as bitter sister Joan. Then a workshop at Chicago's St. Nicholas Theatre Company (now closed, and lamented). Again finally a Princeton College undergraduate production, directed by Mitchell Ivers and with actress-writer Winnie Holzman a memorable, giggling Soot.
Around 1976, I decided not to let the one-act version be performed anymore, because I felt that the material could be expanded to full length, and I wanted to hold off wider exposure of the work until I did that.
The play "feels" autobiographical, I rather assume; and it would be disingenuous to pretend that the characters of Bette and Boo do not in many significant ways reflect my parents' lives. Many of the surrounding characters and events are indeed fictionalized, but there is a core to the play that is pretty much rooted in my past.
I wrote the first "expansion" of the play sometime in 1980, and had a reading of it at the Actors Studio. Having met Joseph Papp a few times by then, I called him up and asked him if I could arrange a reading of the play for him - which I did. From that reading, I did various rewrites, especially relating to Fr. Donnally, and to the character of Matt, which was almost nonexistent in the one-act version.
Mr. Papp (I do call him Joe, but Catholic schoolboy manners are hard to break) was very much of the opinion that I should play the part of Matt myself. Just as Tom in THE GLASS MENAGERIE "feels" like an author surrogate, so does the part of Matt; and Papp, who had seen me perform a few times, felt that my doing the role was a head-on way of dealing with the "author's voice" nature of the part that might pay off.
Performing the role, particularly in previews when it was very new, sometimes struck me as a preposterously public manner in which to reveal some rather personal thoughts and feelings. Since I don't feel I'm easily open about emotions to begin with, it seemed terribly odd to me that I had got myself into this position.
Some people, I'm told, dismiss this play as too angry; I don't agree with them and feel they may be denying something I've found to be true; that unless you go through all the genuine angers you feel, both justified and unjustified, the feeling of love that you do have will not have any legitimate base and will be at least partially false. Plus, eventually you will go crazy. Well, anyway, I'm glad I wrote the expanded version and that I played Matt.
The production of THE MARRIAGE OF BETTE AND BOO at the Public Theatre was the most positive and joyful experience I have had in professional theatre up to this point (and I say that having liked most of my professional experiences). The pleasure of working with Jerry Zaks again [who directed the play], the total agreement with all three designers, the support of all the departments in Papp's excellent New York Shakespeare Festival - this made for a production experience with no drawbacks. I may sound gaga with praise, but it would be pointless not to acknowledge it. As for the actors, I've usually felt fondness and admiration for all the casts I've worked with, but the BETTE AND BOO company grew to be an especially close and loving one.
The 10 parts are of varying size, of course, but each part is rather meaty in its way; and a few days after our opening in early May, all 10 of us shared in an Obie award for Ensemble Acting. The "Ensemble," as we grew fond of grandly calling ourselves, consisted of Joan Allen, Graham Beckel, Olympia Dukakis, Patricia Falkenhain, Kathryn Grody, Bill McCutcheon, Bill Moor, Mercedes Ruehl, Richard B. Shull, and myself. God bless us, each and every one.
I also won an Obie for playwriting, Jerry Zaks for direction, and Loren Sherman for his set designs over the past couple of seasons, including Bette and Boo. One wants to limit how important awards and critical praise seem for all the times one doesn't receive them, and for the instances when fine work of others doesn't get acknowledgement. But that said, we were pretty happy about the Obies.
Well, anyway, it was a terrific experience.
Christopher Durang
excerpted from the AUTHOR?S NOTES
Dramatists Play Service, Inc. Acting Edition
November 1985
Christopher Durang was born on January 2, 1949, in Montclair, New Jersey. Educated at Harvard College and the Yale School of Drama, he has had plays both on and off Broadway including The Nature and Purpose of the Universe; Titanic; A History of the American Film; Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You; Beyond Therapy; Baby With the Bathwater; The Marriage of Bette and Boo; Laughing Wild; and Betty?s Summer Vacation. He won Obie Awards for Sister Mary Ignatius and The Marriage of Bette and Boo, received a Tony nomination for ?Best Book of a Musical? for A History of the American Film, and received a Drama Desk nomination for Betty?s Summer Vacation. He has also written several screenplays including Beyond Therapy; The Nun Who Shot Liberty Valence; The House of Husbands (which he co-authored with Wendy Wasserstein); and The Adventures of Lola.
Durang has also performed for both stage and screen. As an actor, he appeared in Laughing Wild in Los Angeles and The Marriage of Bette and Boo in New York (for which he shared an acting ensemble Obie Award). He performed his cabaret Chris Durang and Dawne in numerous venues, earning himself a 1996 Bistro Award. He also appeared with Julie Andrews in the Sondheim review Putting it Together and with Sigourney Weaver in the Brecht-Weill parody Das Lusitania Songspiel?which they co-wrote. He has made guest appearances on several sitcoms including Frasier (episode 6.8: ?The Seal Who Came To Dinner? as ?Sebastian Melmoth?) and has had supporting roles in several feature films including The Out of Towners (Paranoid Man), Simply Irresistible (Gene O?Reilly), Joe?s Apartment (Boss Clergy), The Cowboy Way (Waiter), Life With Mikey (Santa), Housesitter (Reverend Lipton), The Butcher?s Wife (Mr. Liddle), In the Spirit (Ambulance Attendant), A Shock to the System (Convention Speaker), Penn & Teller Get Killed (Jesus Freak), Mr. North (YMCA Clerk), The Secret of My Success (Davis), and Heaven Help Us (Priest).
Durang has been awarded numerous fellowships and grants including a Guggenheim, a Rockefeller, the CBS Playwriting Fellowship, the Lecompte du Nouy Foundation Grant, the Kenyon Festival Theatre Playwriting Prize, and the Lila Wallace Readers Digest Writers Award. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild Council and is co-chair of the playwriting program at Juilliard. |
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