About the Play:

Bosoms and Neglect has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Female Monologues and Female/Male Scenes.

Bosoms and Neglect is a full-length comedy by John Guare. A pre-Prozac comedy about love and psychotherapy, in which two patients meet in the waiting room of their shared psychiatrist. When the good doctor goes on vacation, they turn to each other and begin an affair that gives new dimension to the phrase "crazy love."

Bosoms and Neglect is a brilliant and biting study of modern mores by one of the theatre's most inventive and inspired satirists. Scooper, a successful but emotionally insecure man edging reluctantly into his forties, discovers that his aged, blind mother, Henny, has been hiding the fact that she is suffering from cancer. With some difficulty he persuades her to undergo surgery, and then turns his attention to Deirdre, a beautiful but extremely neurotic girl whom he picks up in the waiting room of their shared psychiatrist. Their conversation, which is alternately funny, caustic, outlandish and filled with sharp observations of jet-set foibles, centres on their nervous anxiety about the impending vacation of their "shrink," a man without whose services neither can function. Their fears lead to an altercation in which Scooper injures Deirdre's foot and she stabs him in the spleen, with the result that both end up in the hospital with Scooper's mother — where, in a revealing monologue by the now recovering Henny, the play's sad-funny conclusions about life in our perilous times are made eloquently clear.

Bosoms and Neglect premiered in 1977 to great critical and popular acclaim at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. It was then presented on Broadway at Longacre Theatre in 1979. Since then the play enjoyed a well received revival Off-Broadway in 1998 at The Peter Norton Space and was nominated for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Revival of a Play.

Cast: 2 female, 1 male

What people say:

"…sophisticated humor … screamingly clever, sharp and jet-set." — New York Post

"John Guare's restless imagination shoots up ideas as a whirling pinwheel throws off colorful sparks." — Hollywood Reporter

"…it lights up the theatre." — Variety

About the Playwright:

John Guare is an American playwright. He received the Obie, the New York Drama Critics Circle Award and Tony nominations for House of Blue Leaves and Six Degrees of Separation, which also won the Olivier Award for Best Play. He won a Tony for his libretto to Two Gentlemen of Verona, which also won the Tony as Best Musical of 1972. His screenplay for Louis Malle's Atlantic City earned him an Oscar nomination.