Sunset Limited (play)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cormac McCarthy's second published play, Sunset Limited, was first produced by the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago on May 18th, 2006, and it travelled to New York later that same year. The play was published in a paperback edition about same time that it opened in New York.
[edit] Plot
The play involves only two nameless characters, designated "White" and "Black," their respective races. Offstage, just before the play begins, Black saves White from throwing himself in front of a train, the Sunset Limited. All of the action takes place in Black's spare apartment in urban New York, where the characters go (at the behest of Black) after their encounter on the platform. Black is an ex-convict and an evangelical Christian. White is an atheist and a professor. They debate the meaning of human suffering, the existence of God, and the propriety of White's attempted suicide.
[edit] Critics
Critics from the two major newspapers in the two major cities in which the play has opened both noted concerns about the genre of the work.
The Chicago Tribune critic, Chris Jones, notes that the play is hardly traditional theatre, because dialogue rather than action drives the story, yet McCarthy's language is so rich that it makes up for the lack of incident. "Now if only McCarthy would write an actual play," Jones writes. (THEATER REVIEW: "Brilliant, but hardly a play." By Chris Jones, Tribune theater critic, Published May 29, 2006)
The New York Times calls the play "a poem in celebration of death," yet the play's paperback version (as if anticipating the criticism) includes the intriguingly suggestive subtitle, "a novel in dramatic form," which raises many questions about the work's proper genre.
http://theater2.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/theater/reviews/31suns.html?ref=theater
http://www.cormacmccarthy.com/sunset.htm
http://gnosticminx.blogspot.com/2006/05/i-met-cormac-mccarthy-spoiler.html
 |
This theatre-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
