The world according to David Ives is a very add place, and his plays constitute a virtual stress test of the English language -- and of the audience's capacity for disorientation and delight. Ives's characters plunge into black holes called "Philadelphias," where the simplest desires are hilariously thwarted. Chimps named Milton, Swift, and Kafka are locked in a room and made to re-create Hamlet. And a con man peddles courses in a dubious language in which "hello" translates as "velcro" and "fraud" comes out as "freud." At once enchanting and perplexing, incisively intelligent and side-splittingly funny, this original paperback edition of Ives's plays includes "Sure Thing," "Words, Words, Words," "The Universal Language," "Variations on the Death of Trotsky," "The Philadelphia," "Long Ago and Far Away," "Foreplay, or The Art of the Fugue," "Seven Menus," "Mere Mortals," "English Made Simple," "A Singular Kinda Guy," "Speed-the-Play," "Ancient History," and "Philip Glass Buys a Loaf of Bread.
THE STORIES: ENIGMA VARIATIONS. Zany hijinks as a pair of lookalikes named Bebe W.W. Doppel-gängler solve an identity crisis with the help of Dr. William W. Williams and his nurse Fifi, who may or may not be Aphrodite the Goddess of Love. Or is she
With the cleverness of Mark Twain, the hilarity of a Mel Brooks movie, and the fast-moving speed of a train wreck, this cowboy novel of comic genius takes readers back to an Old West as it probably never was--but should have been.
Inspired by the work of Carl Sternheim. The apocalypse is imminent in David Ives’ three-part reworking of Carl Sternheim’s Scenes from the Heroic Lives of the Middle Classes. Leaping through time, we visit three generations of the Mask family: from a household in 1950s Boston, to 1987 Wall Street, all the way to a modern techie home in the Pacific Palisades. Capitalism is on trial, secrets are exposed, and existentialism runs in the family in this rambunctious satire for the ages.
THE STORY: Paris, 1643. Dorante is a charming young man newly arrived in the capital, and he has but a single flaw: He cannot tell the truth. In quick succession he meets Cliton, a manservant who cannot tell a lie, and falls in love with Clarice, a
THE STORY: It's 1666 and the brightest, wittiest salon in Paris is that of Celimene, a beautiful young widow so known for her satiric tongue she's being sued for it. Surrounded by shallow suitors, whom she lives off of without surrendering to, Celi
THE STORY: Mistaken identity, misplaced ardor, and a fight for true love ensue in this adaptation of Piron’s classic 1738 French farce. Would-be poet Damis has fallen in love with the works of a mysterious Breton poetess, not knowing that she is really Francalou, a middle-aged gentleman. Meanwhile, Damis’s non-literary friend Dorante has fallen in love with Francalou’s daughter, Lucille, who mistakes her new suitor for her favorite poet—Damis! Add to the chaos some scheming servants, pseudonyms, and disguises, and there is much to untangle before love-plots are resolved and a happy ending found in this French farce. With his sparkling wit and brilliant sense of comedic timing, David Ives brings a new shine to this lost classic.
Playwright David Ives's follow-up collection to the award-winning collection All in the Timing pushes his gift for wacky one-act comedy to new heights: two mayflies on a date realize they have only twenty-four hours to live; a washing-machine repairman falls in love with a perfect washer (should he tell his girlfriend?); an out-of-work shmo decides to spend his day being painter Edgar Degas; two Babylonian blue-collar workers have to build the Tower of Babel -- or else. Zany, thought-provoking, and always original, this anthology brings together all the one-acts from the Off-Broadway hit Mere Mortals and from the all-new Lives of the Saints, as well as several new and uncollected plays, including Bolero, Arabian Nights (which premiered at the celebrated Humana Festival in Louisville), The Green Hill, and Captive Audience.
THE STORY: Thomas, a beleaguered playwright/director, is desperate to find an actress to play Vanda, the female lead in his adaptation of the classic sadomasochistic tale Venus in Fur . Into his empty audition room walks a vulgar and equally
THE STORY: In a radical departure from his comedies, David Ives writes a searing, disturbing drama about a middle-American businessman whose company and whose very life and sanity stand under attack. E. G. Triplett leads an outwardly respectable, a
THE STORY: Ruth and Jack, both in their mid-thirties, believe themselves perfectly suited to each other. But when Ruth suddenly mentions marriage, a subtle but ominous change is felt in their relationship. As it happens, Ruth is Jewish, Jack is a l
Through a series of letters home, fifteen-year-old Vospop "Voss" Vsklzwczdztwczky shares his experiences as he is smuggled out of Slobovia in a crate of black-market cheese puffs, tries to find a job in an American city, and foils a sinister plot.
THE STORIES: LONG AGO AND FAR AWAY is a domestic drama of a troubled young wife who finds herself crossing through time--and identities--on a fateful winter evening in an empty apartment. (2 men, 2 women.) FOREPLAY OR: THE ART OF THE FUGUE brings us
THE STORIES: Four disparate works demonstrate David Ives' mastery of the short form. THE OTHER WOMAN is a dark drama of sexual obsession within a marriage, as Thomas's sleepwalking wife, Emma, becomes his mistress without knowing it. (1 man, 1 woma
THE STORY: Don Juan is a handsome, rich, sexually naive nobleman in sixteenth-century Spain. His servant, Leporello, urges him to find a girlfriend and lead a normal life, but the Don is more interested in finding the meaning of life through books
A collection of four works from the American playwright known as “wizardly . . . magical and funny . . . a master of language” (The New York Times). This collection brings together four full-length plays from the same dazzling pen that produced the one-act comic masterpieces of All in the Timing. Polish Joke is about a young Polish-American’s trip through ethnic stereotypes. Nine-year-old Midwesterner Jan Bogdan Sadlowski, nicknamed Jasiu, is told by his uncle that Poles are thought to be “backward, stupid, inept, and gloomy.” The only way out is for Jasiu “to impersonate someone not Polish.” In Don Juan in Chicago, a Renaissance innocent makes a deal with the devil, only to become a reluctant Latin lover. Ancient History is a comedy-drama about the holy war that breaks out when two people from two very different cultures fall in love. The Red Address paints a searing portrait of a man with a secret who is forced by tragedy into self-revelation. Praise for David Ives “A pitcher with a great many tricks up his sleeve. He throws like an all-star . . . mixing comedic moods and styles with a dizzying assortment of changeups.” —The New York Times Polish Joke “Ives skillfully climbs the slippery slope of political incorrectness without a single mean-spirited stumble.” —CurtainUp Don Juan in Chicago “Ives invents an irresistible premise and has fun making good on its promise.” —Los Angeles Times Ancient History “A riveting theatrical experience.” —Show Business The Red Address “Mix Glengarry Glen Ross with Glen or Glenda . . . A tough-talking drama that mixes business sharks, blackmail, cross-dressing and murder.” —Variety
Paris, 1708. Eraste, a worthy though penniless young man, is in love with the fair Isabelle, but her forbidding mother, Madame Argante, will only let the two marry if Eraste can show he will inherit the estate of his rich but miserly Uncle Geronte. Unfortunately, old Geronte has also fallen for the fair Isabelle, and plans to marry her this very day and leave her everything in his will—separating the two young lovers forever. Eraste's wily servant Crispin jumps in, getting a couple of meddling relatives disinherited by impersonating them (one, a brash American, the other a French female country cousin)—only to have the old man kick off before his will is made! In a brilliant stroke, Crispin then impersonates the old man, dictating a will favorable to his master (and Crispin himself, of course)—only to find that rich Uncle Geronte isn't dead at all and is more than ever ready to marry Isabelle! The multiple strands of the plot are unraveled to great comic effect in the streaming rhyming couplets of French classical comedy, and everyone lives happily, and richly, ever after.
Philip Glass... is a parodic musical vignette in trademark Glassian style, with the celebrated composer having a moment of existential crisis in a bakery.
THE STORIES: Act One: In FOREPLAY OR: THE ART OF THE FUGUE, we find Chuck, a self-styled Don Juan, and his girlfriend on a date at the miniature golf course. When they move to the second hole, a slightly older Chuck II appears with another date. Finally
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