We accept PayPal, Visa & Mastercard
through our secure checkout.
|
Reckless
Reckless
|
Author: Craig Lucas Publisher: Dramatists Play Service (cover may change) Format: Softcover # of Pages: 72 Pub. Date: 1985 Edition: Acting ISBN-10: 0822209373 ISBN-13: 9780822209379 Cast Size: 5 female, 4 male
|
About
the Play:
Reckless has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Female Monologues and Female/Male Scenes.
Reckless
is a full-length comedic drama by Craig Lucas.
Rachel, a runaway wife, needs to dodge a murderous husband, a couple
with almost as many secrets as she has, numerous psychiatrists (who
may or may not help her), and an assortment of shady characters in an
hilarious and sometimes nightmarish journey. Filled with bizarre
characters and events, Reckless reflects the fractured life-styles
which have become the norm for so many in our tenuous times. Especially recommended for
school and contest use.
Reckless
is a deeply moving story about running away from crisis and running
toward yourself. At home on Christmas Eve, Rachel, a stay-at-home mother is informed by her
guilty husband that he has hired a hitman to kill her, and she must
flee for her life – which she does by scrambling out the kitchen
window and into the snowy night. She meets and joins up with Lloyd
Bophtelophti, a true "original" who has changed his name to
avoid alimony payments and who now lives with a paraplegic named
Pootie (who also pretends to be deaf in order to get double
disability). Rachel then wins $100,000 on an inane TV game show "Your
Mother or Your Wife!" and begins a series of picaresque
escapades involving a succession of psychiatrists and, eventually, an
ill-fated reunion with her husband. In the end, Rachel becomes a
therapist herself, treating her own child (who fails to recognize
her) and is led more and more to ponder whether the modern world
might not be a vast conspiracy designed to systematically undermine
her own increasingly shaky sanity. Told with the signature dark humor
of Craig Lucas, this is a richly inventive and often startling
dark comedy.
Reckless
premiered in an earlier form Off-Off-Broadway by the
Production Company in 1983 and marked the arrival of an exceptionally
imaginative and resourceful young playwright. The first performance
of the published version enjoyed an extended 125-performance run at
Off-Broadway's Circle Repertory Company in Greenwich Village in 1988. Since then it has been
consistently delighting audiences, was revived on Broadway in 2004 by Manhattan Theatre Club (MTC) at
the Biltmore Theater. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and has become a staple of
community theatres, regional repertory houses, and high schools.
Cast: 5 female, 4 male (doubling)
What people say:
"With Reckless…
Mr. Lucas has given us a bittersweet Christmas fable for our time.
It's a Wonderful Life as it might be reimagined for a bruising
contemporary America in which homelessness may be a pervasive
spiritual condition rather than a sociological crisis… Reckless…
has a simple emotional pull akin to that of a Crosby ballad born of
the lonely World War II home front, it yanks us through every
conceivable absurdist hoop, fracturing narrative, language and
characterization on the way to its rending destination." —
New York Times
"Virtually every Christmas
play is either a chestnut or aimed at children more than adults.
Wouldn't it be great if there were a holiday play for grown-ups that
was fresh, unpredictable, contemporary and entirely original? There
is. It's Craig Lucas' wondrously wacky
Reckless, and it has been gift-wrapped in a
dream rendition that's at once seasonal, unusual and very funny."
— Houston Chronicle
About the Playwright:
Craig Lucas is an American screenwriter, performer, stage
and film director, and award-winning playwright. A Pulitzer Prize
finalist and Tony nominee, his honours include the L.A. Drama Critics
Award, two OBIE Awards, and the Excellence in Literature Award from
the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
|
|
|
|
|
Craig Lucas & Adam Guettel
|
|
|
|