About the Play:

Seven Short and Very Short Plays contains a collection of ten-minute plays and playlets by Jean-Claude van Itallie, a seminal off-Broadway playwright, famed for his landmark triptych of counter-culture plays, America Hurrah.

Eat Cake: A biting satire on consumerism in which an attractive housewife, absorbed in her TV is visited by an eccentric rapist – a suave fantasy TV salesman who violates her by forcing her to eat ever more cake. (Premiered in 1971 at The Changing Scene in Denver, Colorado; Cast: 1 female, 1 male)

Harold: Two doctors examine a patient (played dually by an actor and a dummy) methodically dismembering the dummy to prove that it is in the best of health. (Premiered in 1972 at Theater for the New City in New York City: Cast: 1 female, 2 male)

Take A Deep Breath: In this brief, disturbing playlet the victims of air pollution assemble their own mausoleum, while recounting the helpless horror of their demise. (Premiered in 1968 at the Village Vanguard jazz club in New York City; Cast: 1 female, 7 male)

Photographs: Mary And Howard: While their taped voices carry on a random, but revealing, conversation, two people regard each other silently – as still as two photographs. (Premiered in 1972 at Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles; Cast: 1 female, 1 male)

Thoughts On The Instant Of Greeting A Friend On The Street: Two people meet by chance, their conversation moving on two levels: one of the idle surface comments the other of deeper thoughts unspoken. (Premiere in 1965 at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery in New York City: Cast: 1 female, 1 male)

The Girl And The Soldier: A girl sings; a soldier speaks of love and war; and a sense of the very nature of our tortured universe is poignantly evoked. (Premiered in 1965 at LaMama ETC in New York City; Cast: 1 female, 1 male)

Rosary: A nun, riding home on the subway, says her Rosary – and the depth of her personal anguish is poignantly revealed. (written in 1965 for a short film; Cast: 1 female)

About the Playwright:

Jean-Claude van Itallie (1936-2021) was one of the most distinguished playwrights of the American avant-garde. Born in Brussels, Belgium, he was three when his family fled the Holocaust to America as refugees in 1940. He grew up on suburban Long Island, graduated Harvard in 1958, and in the 1960s was a seminal force in the explosive New York Off-Broadway theatre. He may be best-known for America Hurrah (his landmark counter-culture trilogy comprised of Interview, TV and Motel), The Serpent, Tibetan Book of the Dead, and his translations of Chekhov's major plays, which are prized by directors and actors for their clarity and actability, are possibly the most performed Chekhov versions on the American stage.