Cover photo by Joanna Eldredge Morrissey

Plays by Robert Auletta

Robert Auletta
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Description

This collection includes two full-length plays, RED TRAIN and RUNDOWN, and five short plays, VIRGINS, THE TOBOGGANISTS, RABBITS, AMAZONS, and GUESSWORK. RED TRAIN: A theater professor is suspected in the murder of one of his students, with whom he was having an affair. RUNDOWN: The story of Pay, a Vietnam veteran, who is involved in a civilian massacre, and his best friend, Spear, a radical antiwar activist, whose activities lead to the death of two American soldiers. VIRGINS: A fantasia inspired by the robbery in New York of an armored car in which two policemen and a guard were killed. THE TOBOGGANISTS: The play introduces us to a couple, Dunn and Phia. We see them fight. We hear their pleas and curses. We choose sides. Or we don’t choose sides. And finally we come to the conclusion: this play is about earthly life. RABBITS: A couple, who not so long ago had everything, realizes that they have irrevocably lost it. And that they have nothing at all to replace it with. AMAZONS: Amazons have moved in next door to Chaz. It was fine at first, but then came the weird music, the drums, the chanting, the archery. Something must be done. GUESSWORK: A man in the wilderness comes upon an audience that forces him to confront the terror and the pain of the past that haunts him.

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Reviews

Press Quotes

RUNDOWN

“… [Robert Auletta] leaps out with a fresh vision, rich use of language and poetic imagery, a clear understanding of the vein of violence that runs beneath the top-soil of civilization. In all this, he’s often compared to early Sam Shepard, and correctly so. RUNDOWN is one of the best Vietnam era plays yet written.” —Bernard Weiner, San Francisco Chronicle

“RUNDOWN is not just another painful epic about yet another battered Vietnam vet returned from the wars. It is a probing theatrical invention that pits emotional and intellectual recall against the spectrum of forces without and within us that channel and forge our lives … What ranks this piece above the commonplace is its impressionistic style, arresting metaphors and vivid imagery. The vigorous writing speaks in human terms. The poetic drama remembers to create characters of flesh and blood while discussing ideas.” —Sylvie Drake, Los Angeles Times

AMAZONS

“…AMAZONS, a monologue by Robert Auletta about Chaz, a man who becomes obsessed with his Amazonlike neighbors … Auletta cleverly builds his tale with humor until Chaz’s combination of hatred and fascination becomes the undoing of him and the Amazons.” —Terry Byrne, Boston Herald

About the Author

Author

  • Robert Auletta

    Robert Auletta's plays have been produced at many theaters, including The Yale Repertory Theater, Joseph Papp's Public Theater, The American Repertory Theater, The Production Company, PS 122, Café La Mama, and the Westbank Downstairs Theater Bar, where many of his one acts were first performed. His play AMAZONS helped open The Market Theater in Cambridge, MA in 2000. Previous to that, his modern versions of Aeschylus's THE ORESTEIA and Molière's TARTUFFE, both directed by the French/Swiss director Francois Rochaix, were produced in the same city by the American Repertory Theater during their 1995/96 season. Two of his one acts, STOPS/VIRGINS, were awarded a Village Voice Obie for distinguished playwriting in 1983. His modern version of Sophocles' AJAX, directed by Peter Sellars in 1986, was performed in America at both the Kennedy Center and the La Jolla Playhouse, and to great acclaim in many theaters in Europe. It also received The Hollywood Drama-Logue Critics Award, and was filmed by Dutch television It has subsequently been shown at various film festivals in Greece. His Gulf War version of Aeschylus' THE PERSIANS, directed by Peter Sellars in 1993, received both controversy and acclaim in many productions both in America and abroad; causing a heated reaction at Los Angeles' Mark Taper Forum. It was produced again in 2005 by the Scena Theater in Washington, D.C., with an entirely different reaction from the audience. It was first published by Sun and Moon Press and recently reprinted by Broadway Play Publishing Inc. They also printed a collection of his plays, and later his version of Georg Büchner's DANTON'S DEATH, directed by Robert Wilson at the Alley Theater in Houston TX, and later at the Berliner Ensemble. He has received two National Endowment for the Arts Grants, a New York State Foundation Grant, and has been awarded residencies in various art colonies, including The MacDowell Colony, Ledig House, The Millay Colony, and Hawthornden Castle in Scotland. He taught at the Yale School of Drama for five years on various occasions, for thirteen summers at The Harvard Expository Writing Program, and continues to teach at The School of Visual Arts in New York City, and recently at the Lee Strasberg Theater and Film Institute. Since 2008 his short play RABBITS, which is published in PLAYS BY ROBERT AULETTA, has been enjoying another life as a twenty-minute film starring Jessica Hecht and Christopher McCann. For over seven years it has been seen all over the world, including in Russia and China, where it has played on occasion to over 100,000 viewers a week.

  • Robert Auletta

    Robert Auletta's plays have been produced at many theaters, including The Yale Repertory Theater, Joseph Papp's Public Theater, The American Repertory Theater, The Production Company, PS 122, Café La Mama, and the Westbank Downstairs Theater Bar, where many of his one acts were first performed. His play AMAZONS helped open The Market Theater in Cambridge, MA in 2000. Previous to that, his modern versions of Aeschylus's THE ORESTEIA and Molière's TARTUFFE, both directed by the French/Swiss director Francois Rochaix, were produced in the same city by the American Repertory Theater during their 1995/96 season. Two of his one acts, STOPS/VIRGINS, were awarded a Village Voice Obie for distinguished playwriting in 1983. His modern version of Sophocles' AJAX, directed by Peter Sellars in 1986, was performed in America at both the Kennedy Center and the La Jolla Playhouse, and to great acclaim in many theaters in Europe. It also received The Hollywood Drama-Logue Critics Award, and was filmed by Dutch television It has subsequently been shown at various film festivals in Greece. His Gulf War version of Aeschylus' THE PERSIANS, directed by Peter Sellars in 1993, received both controversy and acclaim in many productions both in America and abroad; causing a heated reaction at Los Angeles' Mark Taper Forum. It was produced again in 2005 by the Scena Theater in Washington, D.C., with an entirely different reaction from the audience. It was first published by Sun and Moon Press and recently reprinted by Broadway Play Publishing Inc. They also printed a collection of his plays, and later his version of Georg Büchner's DANTON'S DEATH, directed by Robert Wilson at the Alley Theater in Houston TX, and later at the Berliner Ensemble. He has received two National Endowment for the Arts Grants, a New York State Foundation Grant, and has been awarded residencies in various art colonies, including The MacDowell Colony, Ledig House, The Millay Colony, and Hawthornden Castle in Scotland. He taught at the Yale School of Drama for five years on various occasions, for thirteen summers at The Harvard Expository Writing Program, and continues to teach at The School of Visual Arts in New York City, and recently at the Lee Strasberg Theater and Film Institute. Since 2008 his short play RABBITS, which is published in PLAYS BY ROBERT AULETTA, has been enjoying another life as a twenty-minute film starring Jessica Hecht and Christopher McCann. For over seven years it has been seen all over the world, including in Russia and China, where it has played on occasion to over 100,000 viewers a week.

About the Book

Book Information

Publisher BPPI
Publication Date 9/1/2004
Pages 244
ISBN 9780881452457