R.I.P. Terrence McNally
Re: R.I.P. Terrence McNally
The McNally play I revisit the most often is A Perfect Ganesh. Because it came in the middle of that extraordinary run and wasn't a particularly big "hit" it is rarely discussed, but it's the work that I quote most often (I totally stole "O for a muse of fire!" from it, acknowledging his debt).
Re: R.I.P. Terrence McNally
This is a sad loss. I’ve seen several productions of his plays and have always enjoyed his work. It’s double sad that they won’t be able to dim the lights on Broadway in his honor, as Broadway is already dark.
-
Mister Tee
- Tenured Laureate
- Posts: 8648
- Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 2:57 pm
- Location: NYC
- Contact:
Re: R.I.P. Terrence McNally
I've seen many Terrence McNally efforts, but, looking at his Wikipedia page, there are at least as many I've never got to.
He's had an astonishingly lengthy career. His first (disastrous) NY production, And Things That Go Bump in the Night, came while I was still in grade school (I remember reading the cruel reviews). His first successes, off-Broadway, were during my high school years. His Broadway breakthrough was 1975's The Ritz, an amusing-enough farce. Between that and It's Only a Play a decade later, I had him pegged as a hipper Neil Simon: strictly a funnyman, not a deep writer, though quite entertaining.
But then he produced a string of plays from the late 80s through mid-90s that defined him as a major playwright -- Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, Prelude and Liebestod (I could be wrong, but I think my wife may have been in the first professional production of that), The Lisbon Traviata, Lips Together Teeth Apart, Love! Valour! Compassion!, and Master Class -- the last two winning the Best Play Tony. (Three of these also offered plum roles for Nathan Lane; I daresay Lane owes much of his career to McNally). In his spare time, he wrote the book for multiple musicals, including two that won him additional Tonys, Kiss of the Spider Woman and Ragtime. That's a lifetime of theatre credentials in barely more than a decade.
Lips Together Teeth Apart is my favorite of his works, but I'll also always cherish having seen the original productions of Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune (with Kathy Bates/F. Murray Abraham) and The Lisbon Traviata (in which Nathan Lane was spectacular). And Love! Valour! Compassion! is a very solid play that finally,, 30 years into his career, won him his first non-musical Tony.
He was 81, so this doesn't come as fully shocking. But it does underline we're in the middle of a serious heath crisis, no matter what Wall Street gurus are telling the White House.
He's had an astonishingly lengthy career. His first (disastrous) NY production, And Things That Go Bump in the Night, came while I was still in grade school (I remember reading the cruel reviews). His first successes, off-Broadway, were during my high school years. His Broadway breakthrough was 1975's The Ritz, an amusing-enough farce. Between that and It's Only a Play a decade later, I had him pegged as a hipper Neil Simon: strictly a funnyman, not a deep writer, though quite entertaining.
But then he produced a string of plays from the late 80s through mid-90s that defined him as a major playwright -- Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, Prelude and Liebestod (I could be wrong, but I think my wife may have been in the first professional production of that), The Lisbon Traviata, Lips Together Teeth Apart, Love! Valour! Compassion!, and Master Class -- the last two winning the Best Play Tony. (Three of these also offered plum roles for Nathan Lane; I daresay Lane owes much of his career to McNally). In his spare time, he wrote the book for multiple musicals, including two that won him additional Tonys, Kiss of the Spider Woman and Ragtime. That's a lifetime of theatre credentials in barely more than a decade.
Lips Together Teeth Apart is my favorite of his works, but I'll also always cherish having seen the original productions of Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune (with Kathy Bates/F. Murray Abraham) and The Lisbon Traviata (in which Nathan Lane was spectacular). And Love! Valour! Compassion! is a very solid play that finally,, 30 years into his career, won him his first non-musical Tony.
He was 81, so this doesn't come as fully shocking. But it does underline we're in the middle of a serious heath crisis, no matter what Wall Street gurus are telling the White House.
-
Mister Tee
- Tenured Laureate
- Posts: 8648
- Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 2:57 pm
- Location: NYC
- Contact:
R.I.P. Terrence McNally
Grim milestone: our first celebrity death due to Coronavirus.
https://variety.com/2020/legit/news/ter ... 203543694/
https://variety.com/2020/legit/news/ter ... 203543694/