About the Play:
HARD TO FIND BOOK, only a very limited
number of copies are still available.
Private Jokes, Public Places is a full-length comedy by
Oren Safdie. A female
architecture student defends her thesis project, a swimming pool
facility. With intellectual pretension and a great deal of
pontificating, her advisers challenge her difference, leading her to
turn the tables on them with a spectacular and unexpected action.
Private Jokes, Public Places
captures the character of architectural discourse – in all its
subtleties and foibles – and gives the public a disturbing and
humorous glimpse inside today's architecture schools. Margaret is
a young Korean-American
student who must present her final degree project – a design for a
public swimming pool – to an all male, all white jury of three
famous architects. This
simple premise is a jumping-off point for a facile examination of
academia, intellectual pretension and the failure of postmodernist
culture. In 1981 Moshe Safdie,
one of the most celebrated architects in the world, published a
controversial article in Atlantic
Monthly entitled
"Private Jokes in Public Places." In it, he bemoaned the
trend toward focusing more on design and less on the needs of
clients. He stated "Postmodern architects find social
consciences inconvenient." Twenty years later his son, playwright Oren
Safdie, premiered a play he
called Private Jokes, Public Places
that echoed many of the elder Safdie's views. The play asks
compelling questions about the state of the male-female power
struggle, fears of disrupting the status quo and ultimately, the
importance of challenging tradition.
Private Jokes, Public Places premiered in 2001 at the Malibu Playhouse in Los Angeles, and then played Off Broadway in 2003 at La
MaMa E.T.C. before transferring, appropriately enough, to the Theater
at the Center of Architecture in Greenwich Village for a 5-month run.
Private Jokes, Public Places was a critical off-Broadway hit
and was singled out in 2010 by Terry Teachout of the Wall Street
Journal as one of the best half-dozen new plays he had seen since
he started reviewing. The play is performed regularly by students at
architecture schools to mark the beginning of the year.
Cast: 1 woman, 3 men
What people say:
"Implausible as it may sound,
Mr. Safdie has done the impossible: He's written an unpretentiously
witty play of ideas about some of the most pretentious ideas known to
man. Instead of telling you what to think, he leaves the thinking to
you, and in between the laughs you'll do plenty of it … The
funniest new play to hit New York in months." — Wall
Street Journal
"An X-Acto-blade-sharp new
comedy that doubles as a cry of indignation. Safdie exposes the
emperor's new blueprints for all to see." — The New
Yorker
"Inspired and astonishing…The
verbal dexterity alone is mesmerizing. A battle of wits between four
sharply defined characters. An hour and a quarter of laughter...
[Safdie's writing] is a reminder that terrific original work
often comes from a strong point of view and a willingness to take
chances." — The New York Times
"Anyone who has ever suffered
through a dry academic symposium, with various ‘experts'
pontificating in prolix philosophical terms that would baffle
Spinoza, will find much to hoot about in Private Jokes, Public Places
… a facile examination of academia, intellectual pretension and the
failure of postmodernist culture. As for Safdie, comparisons with
Yasmina Reza's Art will be
inevitable. But Safdie rivals Reza in wit and often outstrips her in
intellectual heft." — The Los Angeles Times
"A biting satire with a
humanist heart – seldom has theory-bashing been dramatized with
such erudition and wit. The more of it you know, the funnier – and
more frightening – the play is. A take-no-prisoners comedy."
— Time Out NY
"Safdie's frenetic new plays
of ideas … raises just about every issue that has kept design
offices, coffeehouses and university hallways in conversation for he
past century – then makes us laugh knowingly at ourselves for
taking them so seriously." — Metropolis
"Safdie has captured the
character of architectural discourse – in all its subtleties and
foibles – and brought to the public a disturbing (yet humorous)
glimpse inside today's architecture schools." —
Architecture Week
About the Playwright:
Oren Safdie is a Canadian-American-Israeli playwright and
screenwriter. A native of Montreal, he is the son of famed
Israeli-born Canadian architect Moshe Safdie. He attended the
Graduate School of Architecture at Columbia University before turning
his attention to playwriting. He has written for and contributed to
Metropolis, Dwell, Beyond, The Forward,
Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, The Algemeiner,
The New Republic and The
National Post. He is also the recipient of numerous grants
from the Canada Council for the Arts, Conseil des Arts et des Lettres
du Québec, The John Golden Foundation, and The Graham Foundation. He
has taught playwriting and screenwriting at the University of Miami
and Douglas College in Vancouver.