Three Plays by Terrence Mcnally - by Terrence McNally (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

"Terrence McNally is one of our most original and audacious dramatists and one of our funniest."--The New Yorker

These three stunning plays are a testament to the extraordinary talent and comedic brilliance of Terrence McNally. All produced off-Broadway to great acclaim, his most recent works are gathered here for the first time in a unique collection of drama, romance, and comedy. The Lisbon Traviata is a powerfully moving tragicomedy about a crumbling homosexual marriage. And in Frankie and Johnnie in the Clair de Lune, a man and a woman, "not young, not old, no great beauties, either one," come together in a fresh and witty display of emotional fireworks. McNally himself describes the final piece, the bitingly honest and uproariously funny It's Only a Play, as his "attempt to describe exactly what I was like to work in Broadway in the 1980s." These three unforgettable works, starkly individual yet all charged with brilliant wit and searing intimacy, dazzle us with McNally's wisdom, compassion, and extraordinary brand of comic genius.

Review Quotes

This Lisbon Traviata
"I don't know when I have heard such scaldingly intimate dialogue in the New York theater."--Rex Reed, New York Post

"A savagely amusing and empathetic study of two men whose lives have been lost in opera."--Frank Rich, The New York Times

"A highly entertaining, amusing, touching, compelling play."--New York Observer

Frankie and Johnnie in the Clair de Lune
"A very sweet, extraordinarily funny, romantic, ribald comedy."--Clive Barnes, New York Post

"Fresh, illuminating... the most serious play yet about intimacy in the age of AIDS."--Frank Rich, The New York Times

"Among the best plays he has written."--Edith Oliver, The New Yorker

It's Only a Play
"Charged with an energy that leaps and zigzags from the merely frantic to the hysterical."--Brendan Gill, The New Yorker

"Frequently uproarious!"--Frank Rich, The New York Times

About the Author

Terrence McNally is the author of numerous plays, including Love! Valour! Compassion! (winner of the Tony Award for best play), The Ritz, and Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune, which was made into a feature film starring Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer, and the books for the musicals The Rink, and Kiss of the Spider Woman (winner of the Tony Award for the best book of a musical). Other successes include Lips Together, Teeth Apart and The Lisbon Traviata. McNally has received two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller Grant, and a citation from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He also serves as vice president for the Dramatists Guild, the national orgainzation of playwrights, composers, and lyricists. He lives in New York City.