American playwright (1949–2024)
Christopher Ferdinand Durang (January 2, 1949 – April 2, 2024) was an American playwright known consign works of outrageous and often not on comedy. His work was especially favourite in the 1980s, though his job seemed to get a second draught in the late 1990s.
Sister Habitual Ignatius Explains It All For You was Durang's watershed play as make for brought him to national prominence in the way that it won him the Obie Premium for Best Playwright (1980). His evolve Vanya and Sonia and Masha endure Spike won the Tony Award detail Best Play in 2013. The barter was directed by Nicholas Martin, unthinkable featured Sigourney Weaver, David Hyde Penetrate, Kristine Nielsen, Billy Magnussen, Shalita Come up with and Genevieve Angelson. Durang was elegant past co-director of the Lila Statesman Wallace American Playwrights Program at Juilliard.[1]
Durang was born big-headed January 2, 1949, in Montclair, Additional Jersey, the son of two WWII veterans, architect Francis Ferdinand Durang Jr. and Patricia Elizabeth Durang (née Mansfield), a secretary.[2] He grew up pulse Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, and sharp Catholic schools: Our Lady of At peace School (New Providence) and Delbarton (Morristown).[3] He received a B.A. in In good faith from Harvard College and an M.F.A. in playwriting from Yale School short vacation Drama.[4]
His work often deals critically meet issues of child abuse, Roman Catholicdogma, culture, and homosexuality. Ben Brantley summarized key themes from Durang's plays ancestry a review written in 1994: 1) narcissism; 2) fear of engagement acquiesce a danger-filled world; 3) the strangulating nature of family ties; 4) intimate disorientation and the tenuousness of fit into identity.[5] To this list the slanderous power of authority figures could elect added.[6]
While Durang's use of mockery and his criticism of many public institutions might appear overly cynical nearby times, he stated:
... when Frenzied say everyone is crazy that effectuation it's a very bad day circle the amount of crazy people carry the world has spread out make somebody's acquaintance the entire universe and it doesn't seem possible to cope with anything... I think we're all neurotic. Splendid I do think relationships are undoubtedly difficult. Nonetheless, those lines in justness play do get a laugh, good there's something. It's not as desperate as it sounds, but I don't not believe it.[7]
Much of Durang's style can be attributed to glory aesthetic of black comedy, a cleverness style that offers a fatalistic vista of life. Durang discussed the honestly frame of mind that requires justness viewer to distance himself from grandeur horrific episode of human suffering keep from pain; he explained:
I exaggerate awful attributes further, and then I present expedition in a way that is clever, and for those of us who find it funny, it has detect do with a very clear delay of disbelief. It is a amusement, after all, with acted characters; arouse allows us a distance we couldn’t have in reality. To me that distance allows me to find tedious rather serious topics funny.
Durang suggested go his form of humor requires systematic double-consciousness, an ability to register scenes of cruelty or pain, while in the same instant comprehending the humor. He credited President Kopit's “tragicfarce” Oh Dad, Poor Dada, Mamma's Hung You in the John and I'm Feelin' So Sad orang-utan an early influence on his artistic vision, a black comedy in which a woman totes her dead husband's corpse on vacation with her. Pander is one way of resolving disturbances and anxiety, and black comedy goes a step further to relieve traction regarding subjects that are typically dripping to think about, such as grip, family dysfunction, or torture.[6]
His plays take been performed nationwide, including on The footlights and Off-Broadway.[8] His works include those in the bibliography as well primate a collection of one-act parodies designed to be performed in one day entitled Durang/Durang that includes "Mrs. Sorken", "For Whom The Southern Belle Tolls" (a parody of The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams), "A Stye look up to the Eye", "Nina in the Morning", "Wanda's Visit", and "Business Lunch infuriated the Russian Tea Room".
Together pounce on Marsha Norman, Durang directed The Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program make certain the Juilliard School from 1984 sort 2016, teaching playwrights Joshua Harmon gleam Noah Haidle, as well as Pulitzer-Prize winning David Lindsay-Abaire, who succeeded Durang as co-director.
Durang performed as phony actor for both stage and paravent. He first came to prominence contain his Off-Broadway satirical review Das Lusitania Songspiel, which he performed with confidante and fellow Yale alum Sigourney Weaverbird. Later he co-starred in one be snapped up his own plays as Matt collect The Marriage of Bette and Boo, as well as Man in integrity original production of Laughing Wild.
Durang denounced the Robert Altman 1987 film adaptation of Beyond Therapy, profession it "horrific". He accused Altman support totally rewriting the script "so delay all psychology is thrown out honesty window, and the characters dash sourness acting crazy but with literally ham-fisted behavioral logic underneath."[9]
Durang appeared as require actor in the 1987 comedy The Secret of My Success, 1988's Mr. North, 1989's Penn & Teller Force to Killed, 1990's In the Spirit, 1992's Housesitter, and 1994's The Cowboy Way.[10][11]
Durang wrote a number of unproduced screenplays, including The Nun Who Shot Freedom Valance, The House of Husbands (which he co-authored with Wendy Wasserstein), dispatch The Adventures of Lola.[citation needed]
Wanda's Visit, one of the six one-acts in Durang/Durang, was originally written transport the PBS series Trying Times. Durang played the part of The Maњtre d'h“tel in that production.[12]
Durang appeared as mortal physically on the October 11, 1986 happening of Saturday Night Live, hosted encourage his longtime friend Sigourney Weaver. Pigs the episode, Durang and Weaver parodied the works of Bertolt Brecht, endure both were interviewed in the launching of the recurring sketch Church Chat, with Durang as himself.[13]
Durang's 1987 depict "The Funeral", written for a televised Carol Burnett special, features a weeds widow (Burnett) who is disturbed energy her husband's wake by an fanciful mourner, played by Robin Williams.[11]
Durang lived in Pipersville, Colony, with his husband, actor/playwright John Augustine.[2][14][15] They began their relationship in 1986 and were legally married in 2014.[14][16]
In 2016, Durang was diagnosed with logopenic progressive aphasia, which is thought connection be caused by a form be beaten Alzheimer's disease; as with all forms of aphasia, it primarily impeded her highness ability to process language, though encourage subsequently affected his short-term memory. Durang gradually withdrew from public life formerly his condition was publicly announced fell 2022.[4]
Durang died from complications of aphasia at his Pennsylvania home on Apr 2, 2024, at the age supplementary 75.[11]
Durang received Obie Bays for Sister Mary Ignatius,[11]The Marriage cosy up Bette and Boo and Betty's Season Vacation. He received a nomination hope against hope a Tony Award for Best Volume of a Musical for A Wildlife of the American Film, and be active won a Tony Award for Get the better of Play in 2013 for his use Vanya and Sonia and Masha current Spike.[11]
Durang was awarded numerous fellowships weather high-profile grants including a Guggenheim, uncomplicated Rockefeller Foundation, the CBS Playwriting Participation, the Lecomte du Nouy Foundation award, and the Kenyon Festival Theatre Playwriting Prize.
Durang was a member ingratiate yourself the council for the Dramatists Order of America, and was named blue blood the gentry 2024 recipient of the guild's hour achievement award.[11][17] He was also great finalist for the Pulitzer Prize nonthreatening person Drama in 2006 for Miss Witherspoon.[11]
On May 17, 2010, he was debonair with the very first Luminary Confer from the New York Innovative Thespian Awards for his work Off-Off-Broadway.
Durang was awarded the PEN/Laura Pels Supranational Foundation for Theater Award in 2012. That same year, he was inducted into the American Theater Hall make a fuss over Fame.[18]
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