Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Family matters …

… Bryan Appleyard — Pain on the Plains. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

I ask Letts why this kind of play keeps coming back. He was driving at the time, but I think I heard him do that writerly shrug, the one that means he does not wish to line his works with the costly stuff of explanation. “Yeah, well, it will take someone smarter than me to explain why that is the case. I am sure there are all sorts of good sound sociological reasons why, as Americans, we have always been fascinated with the family. We don’t seem to be capable of writing the purely political play or social satire that you guys seem to excel at, so who the hell knows?”

I was raised by factory workers. I wouldn't get this sort of thing, either, if I hadn't got out into the world and mixed with my social betters, whose family dynamics have always struck me as peculiar.

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