An entertaining read for theater buffs and basic fiction fans alike.
A collection of 75 plays reflecting diverse human and literary voices.
Traditionally, monologues serve as a dramatic highlight, not the total theatrical production. Wang presents brief, two-to-four-minute monologues created to stand alone as independent plays or grouped as a series. The plays are written with colorful and engaging voices that range from comical to melancholy. Some supply unexpected inventive scenarios, such as a gondola’s lament as it sinks below the surface of Venice’s Grand Canal, and Queen Hypsipyle explaining how she and the women of Lemnos suffered at the hands of dishonorable men (but she still welcomes Jason and the hope he represents). A quirky take on Snow White shows her nagging after her drunken husband Prince Charming as he gallops away, supplying a different ending than the typical fairy-tale finale. The author ably delves into the stories of other classic literary characters, including Medea and Hercules, but these aren’t the collection’s standouts. Wang displays a sharply honed ear for everyday language and situations that shine with humor and authenticity. In “Flirt, With Child,” a single mother plays vamp in a grocery store with an Irish-Australian man trying to decide on a pasta sauce, while her little girl obstructs the game. The comical spectacle is heightened when the mom suddenly starts throwing out Italian phrases and her daughter winds up kicking the hapless man in frustration. At the other end of the spectrum, “Room 606” shows a son returning home to thank his father for supporting him, though he didn’t understand him. The son recalls all the things his ailing father has done to inspire gratitude, and sadness and pain leap from the page-long play. The book successfully captures the power of the short, one-person performance.
An entertaining read for theater buffs and basic fiction fans alike.Pub Date: Aug. 19, 2009
ISBN: 978-1448671991
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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