Tony Award-winning playwright Christopher Durang has died
American playwright Christopher Durang has died at 75. He received a Tony Award for “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist with “Miss Witherspoon.”
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Tony Award-winning playwright Christopher Durang died on Tuesday at his residence in Pennsylvania of issues from aphasia. That’s based on his husband. He was 75. Durang wrote performs, each comedian and melancholy, says our reporter, Jeff Lunden.
JEFF LUNDEN, BYLINE: There was all the time one thing a bit depraved, a bit offended and greater than a bit comedian about Christopher Durang’s writing. The New Jersey native honed his craft on the Yale Faculty of Drama and received his huge break in 1981 when he thrilled and scandalized some audiences with “Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You.” The play ran a number of years off Broadway and was banned in some cities. Here is Durang studying a part of the nun’s monologue on WHYY’s Recent Air.
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CHRISTOPHER DURANG: (Studying) To reply your query, Sodom is the place they dedicated acts of homosexuality and bestiality within the Previous Testomony. And God, infuriated by this, destroyed them multi functional fell swoop. Trendy-day Sodoms are New York Metropolis, San Francisco, Amsterdam, Los Angeles – properly, principally wherever the place the inhabitants is over 50,000.
ANDRE BISHOP: I feel the factor about Christopher Durang is that he was not only a humorous author who tackled huge topics and went in any case kinds of individuals and all kinds of issues that he discovered absurd in life.
LUNDEN: Andre Bishop is creative director of Lincoln Middle Theater and labored with Christopher Durang for a lot of the playwright’s 40-year profession.
BISHOP: He was a author of nice humanity and compassion, and that elevated as his profession went on.
LUNDEN: Durang’s performs have been typically absurdist and got here from private experiences – his household, his time in remedy. However typically, Durang took on enormous topics. Considered one of his performs was known as “Why Torture Is Improper And The Individuals Who Love Them.” That is from NPR’s Discuss Of The Nation in 2009.
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DURANG/NPR CLIP: I’ve to confess, I did not sit down and say, I will write a comedy about torture. And, , torture is not humorous. Nonetheless, I’ve taken to describing the play a bit bit to folks as within the vein of “Dr. Strangelove.”
LUNDEN: Over his profession, Durang had hits and flops. For some time, he deserted theater to jot down for movie and tv. However he stored on coming again, each as a author and as a performer. And he scored huge with a Chekhovian-influenced comedy, “Vanya And Sonia And Masha And Spike,” which received the Tony Award for greatest play in 2013.
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As Nina) You remind me of my uncle, solely nicer and extra creative. He burps loads, and he does not converse a lot.
LUNDEN: Andre Bishop, who produced the play, says it was no surprise that considered one of Christopher Durang’s performs was known as “Laughing Wild.”
BISHOP: I’ve by no means identified anybody who preferred to snigger greater than he did. And that is what I keep in mind – this simply effervescent snigger that he had and the truth that he regarded on the world by way of very sharp and really humorous eyes.
LUNDEN: For NPR Information, I am Jeff Lunden in New York.
(SOUNDBITE OF ADRIAN YOUNGE SONG, “STEP BEYOND”)
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