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The Kramer
The Kramer
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Author: Mark Medoff Publisher: Dramatists Play Service (cover may change) Format: Softcover # of Pages: 69 Pub. Date: 1976 ISBN-10: 082220620X ISBN-13: 9780822206200 Cast Size: 3 female, 4 male
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About
the Play:
The Kramer is a full-length drama by Mark Medoff. A
macabre portrait of a malevolent young man named Bart Kramer who
bullies his way into a job at a Washington temp agency and
systematically destroys the life of a good-hearted co-worker. The
Kramer explores the destructive effects of blind ambition and
selfish power.
The Kramer is about power, ambition, and modern lifestyles. It is set in Washington, and chronicles, often
in surrealistic terms, the lightning rise of a cool Machiavelli named
Bart Kramer through the ranks of the Washington Institute of
Secretarial Sciences. Self-assured and unyielding, Kramer becomes
obsessed with improving the lives of his rumpled male secretary, Art,
and Judy, one of his more repressed and unsuccessful students. The
awesome power of his driving ego is so great that resistance to his
will is futile. Coldly and dispassionately Kramer intentionally
breaks up Art's and Judy's marriages, then sets about destroying
Art's life when Art rebels against his overbearing ways. In the end
Kramer is a master power player, but the cruel reality of the damage
he has done to others remains to be pondered – as does the
haunting, provocative question of "why?" The Kramer
is a bitterly revealing account of playwright Mark Medoff's
experience in the Washington bureaucracy.
The Kramer premiered in 1973 at the American Conservatory
Theatre in San Francisco and later that year enjoyed great success
during the Mark Taper Forum's "New Theatre for Now" series
in Los Angeles. The play
has been successfully staged at several professional theatres.
Cast: 3 female, 4 male
What people say:
"The Kramer presents an authentic look at many of today's problems, especially those that plague middle-class working men. ...Kramer is a shrewd man who sees nothing being more important than his advance to higher and greater positions of authority. He will stop at nothing to make himself look good." — American Eagle
"The Kramer is a study of menace, manipulation and violence just under the skin. ...Medoff implies that Kramer's ways (his ultimate goal is a berth at the State Department) are those of Washington or any city drunk on power. ...This is a provocative marriage of an off-beat play and a troupe that has set out to forge a distinctive ensemble style. Isn't that what we are looking for in our 'alternative' theaters?" — Washington Post
About the Playwright:
Mark Medoff (1940-2019) was an American playwright,
screenwriter, film and theatre director, actor, and professor. The
author of twenty-six plays and eleven movies, his play Children of
a Lesser God received both the Tony Award and the Olivier Award,
as well as Outer Critics and Drama Desk awards. He was nominated for
an Academy Award for the film script of Children of a Lesser God
and a Cable ACE award for his HBO premiere movie Apology. He
received Obie, Outer Critics and Drama Desk awards for When You
Comin' Back Red Ryder?. He was Dramatist in Residence and
Professor Emeritus of Theatre Arts at New Mexico State University,
where he served on the English and Theatre Arts faculties for
twenty-seven years.
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