Plays by Len Jenkin
Collection Description
This collection includes three full-length plays: A COUNTRY DOCTOR, LIKE I SAY, and PILGRIMS OF THE NIGHT. A COUNTRY DOCTOR: Len Jenkin’s surrealistic comedy uses Franz Kafka’s story “Ein Landarzt” as a point of departure to explore his personal life and literary works. LIKE I SAY: Coconut Joe is looking for the perfect consignment of coconuts for the biscuit factory he works for. His search has taken him to Berlin, where he is double crossed by a beautiful woman and ends up as a prisoner in a nuclear waste plant. PILGRIMS OF THE NIGHT: Trapped during a storm in a ferry terminal with no food, no electricity, and no cellular signal, these pilgrims of the night pass the time sharing salacious tales that range from adultery to a biblical flood.
Plays in This Collection
- Reviews
- About the Author(s)
- About the Book
Press Quotes
A COUNTRY DOCTOR
“The central journey in A COUNTRY DOCTOR — Kafka’s physician anxiously pushing through a raging blizzard to reach a dying patient — keeps overtaking the other travelers, giving them nightmares. The visceral treats of the piece are many and fine. Makes you want to stick your thumb out and hop aboard for the wild ride.” —New York Post
“Jenkin, over the course of the play’s seventy-five minutes, give us virtually the entire Kafka short story in sequential fashion. And he turns the story into a comment on modern man’s existential condition through the Guest, and most interestingly, on Kafka’s own psychological-sexual torment as reflected in his writings. It’s an intellectual-literary tour de force of amazing density.” —Star and Tribune (Minneapolis)
LIKE I SAY
“LIKE I SAY, a new play by one of America’s leading writers, is set at the seaside Hotel Splendide, where a peculiar group of travelers try to make some sense of life and get ahold of some ready cash. This mysterious and comic story takes us to the edge of America and the end of the line.” —Royal Court Theatre, London
“Len Jenkin has an unusual talent for reaching into the shadowy places in the human psyche and coming up with evocative images — like thrusting an arm into a barrel of black slime and coming up with a handful of gold nuggets.” —Journal American (Seattle)
PILGRIMS OF THE NIGHT
“In the six tales of PILGRIMS OF THE NIGHT, and in the framing narrative, Jenkin explores many of the raw nerve ends in our society; the deep need to believe an absolute, while at the same time reveling in the gratification of the present; the difference between titillation and satisfaction; the bizarre nature of reality; and the real nature of the bizarre.” —Times (Seattle)
“Jenkin’s PILGRIMS OF THE NIGHT is a wonderful combination of innocence and guile, primitive impulses and sophisticated craft. Zombies, a headless woman, an island paradise, an erotically frustrated fry cook, a psychopathic neurosurgeon, a silver fairy, and a formerly live deer all make memorable impressions.” —Post-Intelligencer (Seattle)
Author(s)
Len JenkinLen Jenkin is a novelist, playwright, director, and screenwriter. His novels include N Judah, New Jerusalem, and The Secret Life of Billy's Uncle Myron (with Emily Jenkins). Plays include DARK RIDE, PILGRIMS OF THE NIGHT, CARELESS LOVE, MY UNCLE SAM, LIMBO TALES, THE DREAM EXPRESS, and LIKE I SAY. His works for the stage have been produced throughout the United States, as well as in England, Germany, France, Denmark, and Japan. His films include Blame It on the Night, Welcome to Oblivion, and American Notes. He has received many honors and awards, including three Obie awards for directing and playwriting, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Rockefeller Foundation Award, a nomination for an Emmy Award, and four National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships. Mr. Jenkin holds a Ph.D. in American Literature from Columbia University. He's a Professor in the Dramatic Writing Department, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, and lives in New York City.