Bosoms and Neglect
Encyclopedia
Bosoms and Neglect is a play by American playwright John Guare
, first staged in 1979 at the Goodman Theatre
in Chicago
, Illinois
.
, scenery by John Wulp
, costumes by Willa Kim
opened at the Longacre Theatre
on May 3, 1979, where it ran for 4 performances. The cast included Kate Reid
(Henny), Paul Rudd
(Scooper), and Marian Mercer
(Deirdre). It followed a limited engagement at the Goodman Theatre
in Chicago
, Illinois
, that opened at March 1. For her performance, Kate Reid was nominated for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play
.
The 1998 Off-Broadway
production by the Signature Theatre Company at the The Peter Norton Space was directed Nicholas Martin, fight director Rick Sordelet, set design James Noone, costume design Gail Brassard, lighting design Frances Aaronson, and sound design Red Ramona. It opened on December 1, 1998 and closed on January 10, 1999. The show starred David Aaron Baker (Scooper), Katie Finneran
(Deidre), and Mary Louise Wilson
(Henny). The production was nominated for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Revival of a Play
.
is referenced in the play's title, and Scooper, her son; the first act involved Scooper and Deirdre, a girl who is another patient of Scooper's psychiatrist; and the second act focused again mainly on Henny and Scooper. This segmented structure, and the play's rapid shifts between comedy and suffering, were not successful with early critics and audiences.
Although the play had received positive reviews in its March 1979 tryout in Chicago, the initial New York production was not well received and closed after only four performances. John Simon
wrote in New York
that the play was the latest in a "series of unconsideredly churned-out catastrophes" that Guare had written after his early success. Simon characterized the play as having "three levels that stubbornly refuse to bend, and are not worth much individually either." Richard Eder
of The New York Times
had a similar opinion: "John Guare, whose recent plays contained a real allure in their crevices, has missed out completely this time. The crags of 'Bosoms and Neglect' show the geological markings of nothing much besides lead."
Despite its failure on Broadway, the play soon received other productions, which met with more positive results and, over time, led to a re-evaluation of the play's position among Guare's works. Mel Gussow
of The New York Times
wrote that the Yale Repertory Theater's "minimally revised" October 1979 production was "far better than the Broadway production"; although he still thought the play had "basic dramatic flaws", the new production humanized the characters (especially Henny) and offered "a clearer picture of the play's possibilities and the playright's intentions." Gussow also reviewed a 1986 Off-Broadway production at the Perry Street Theatre and found that "the play has kept its assets and its flaws intact"; he thought that the play's structure "still seems like two disparate one-act dialogues sewn together to make up a full-length play" but that "it is more interesting than many other current plays" and that Anne Meara
's performance as Henny "reaches to the heart of the mother, offering a portrait of a woman flailing for life support."
The 1998 Signature Theatre Company production (which revised the structure to integrate the prologue into the first act) also met with critical approval. The New York Post
s Donald Lyons called it a "triumph", while Vincent Canby
in the Times thought "Mary Louise Wilson
's performance as the old lady" was "viciously articulate", and he characterized the play as "a way station between the playwright's first major work, The House of Blue Leaves
(1971), and his last hit, Six Degrees of Separation (1990)." Later writers about Guare have called Bosoms and Neglect a "finely balanced work which moves from wild comedy . . . to a beautifully modulated second act" and "one of Guare's best plays".
John Guare
John Guare is an American playwright. He is best known as the author of The House of Blue Leaves, Six Degrees of Separation, and Landscape of the Body...
, first staged in 1979 at the Goodman Theatre
Goodman Theatre
The Goodman Theatre is a professional theater company located in Chicago's Loop. A major part of Chicago theatre, it is the city's oldest currently active nonprofit theater organization...
in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
.
Productions
Bosoms and Neglect, directed by Mel ShapiroMel Shapiro
Mel Shapiro is an American theatre director and writer, college professor, and author.Trained at Carnegie-Mellon University, Shapiro began his professional directing career at the Pittsburgh Playhouse and then as resident director at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C....
, scenery by John Wulp
John Wulp
John Wulp is an American scenic designer, producer, and director. Wulp won a Tony Award for Best Revival for his production of Dracula in 1978. He also received a Tony Award nomination and won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Set Design for his designs in the 1979 production of The Crucifer of...
, costumes by Willa Kim
Willa Kim
Willa Kim is an American costume designer for stage, dance, and film.Kim was born in Los Angeles, California and is a 1935 graduate of Belmont High School where she excelled in art and was an art editor for the 1935 Campanile...
opened at the Longacre Theatre
Longacre Theatre
The Longacre Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 220 West 48th Street in midtown Manhattan.-Theatre History:Designed by architect Henry Beaumont Herts in 1912, it was named for Longacre Square, the original name for Times Square...
on May 3, 1979, where it ran for 4 performances. The cast included Kate Reid
Kate Reid
Kate Reid, OC was a Canadian stage, film and television actress.-Life and career:Daphne Kate Reid was born in London, England, the daughter of Canadian parents, Helen Isabel and Walter Clarke Reid, who was a former Bengal Lancer in the Indian army and a retired colonel...
(Henny), Paul Rudd
Paul Ryan Rudd
Paul Ryan Rudd was an American actor, director, and a professor. He appeared as the title character in a 1976 production of Shakespeare's Henry V, opposite Meryl Streep as his love interest...
(Scooper), and Marian Mercer
Marian Mercer
Marian Ethel Mercer was an American actress and singer.Born in Akron, Ohio, she graduated from the University of Michigan, then spent several seasons working in summer stock. She made her Broadway debut in the chorus of the short-lived musical, Greenwillow in 1960...
(Deirdre). It followed a limited engagement at the Goodman Theatre
Goodman Theatre
The Goodman Theatre is a professional theater company located in Chicago's Loop. A major part of Chicago theatre, it is the city's oldest currently active nonprofit theater organization...
in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, that opened at March 1. For her performance, Kate Reid was nominated for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play
Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play
The Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play was first awarded at the 1974–1975 Drama Desk Awards and has been awarded every year since...
.
The 1998 Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...
production by the Signature Theatre Company at the The Peter Norton Space was directed Nicholas Martin, fight director Rick Sordelet, set design James Noone, costume design Gail Brassard, lighting design Frances Aaronson, and sound design Red Ramona. It opened on December 1, 1998 and closed on January 10, 1999. The show starred David Aaron Baker (Scooper), Katie Finneran
Katie Finneran
Katie Finneran is an American actress of film, stage, and television noted for her Tony Award-winning performances in the Broadway play Noises Off in 2002, and the musical Promises, Promises in 2010.-Personal life:...
(Deidre), and Mary Louise Wilson
Mary Louise Wilson
Mary Louise Wilson is an American stage, film and television actress.-Stage:Broadway* Hot Spot — 1963 as Sue Ann* Flora, The Red Menace — 1965 as Comrade Ada* Lovers and Other Strangers — 1968 as Bernice...
(Henny). The production was nominated for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Revival of a Play
Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Revival of a Play
This is a list of winners of the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Revival of a Play initially introduced in 1976 as the, Drama Desk for Award Outstanding Revival and included musical theatre as well as stage plays.-1980s:* 1982: Entertaining Mr...
.
Reception
In its original form, the play's prologue was a dialog between Henny, a aged, ailing mother whose breast cancerBreast cancer
Breast cancer is cancer originating from breast tissue, most commonly from the inner lining of milk ducts or the lobules that supply the ducts with milk. Cancers originating from ducts are known as ductal carcinomas; those originating from lobules are known as lobular carcinomas...
is referenced in the play's title, and Scooper, her son; the first act involved Scooper and Deirdre, a girl who is another patient of Scooper's psychiatrist; and the second act focused again mainly on Henny and Scooper. This segmented structure, and the play's rapid shifts between comedy and suffering, were not successful with early critics and audiences.
Although the play had received positive reviews in its March 1979 tryout in Chicago, the initial New York production was not well received and closed after only four performances. John Simon
John Simon (critic)
John Ivan Simon is an American author and literary, theater, and film critic.-Personal life:Simon was born in Subotica, Bačka, County of Bačka, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, later, known as Yugoslavia . He is of Hungarian descent...
wrote in New York
New York (magazine)
New York is a weekly magazine principally concerned with the life, culture, politics, and style of New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to The New Yorker, it was brasher and less polite than that magazine, and established itself as a cradle of New...
that the play was the latest in a "series of unconsideredly churned-out catastrophes" that Guare had written after his early success. Simon characterized the play as having "three levels that stubbornly refuse to bend, and are not worth much individually either." Richard Eder
Richard Eder
Richard Eder was for 20 years variously a foreign correspondent, a film reviewer and the drama critic for the New York Times. Subsequently he was book critic for the Los Angeles Times, winning a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism and the National Book Critics Circle annual citation...
of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
had a similar opinion: "John Guare, whose recent plays contained a real allure in their crevices, has missed out completely this time. The crags of 'Bosoms and Neglect' show the geological markings of nothing much besides lead."
Despite its failure on Broadway, the play soon received other productions, which met with more positive results and, over time, led to a re-evaluation of the play's position among Guare's works. Mel Gussow
Mel Gussow
Melvyn H. Gussow was an American theater critic, movie critic, and author who wrote for The New York Times for 35 years.-Biography:...
of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
wrote that the Yale Repertory Theater's "minimally revised" October 1979 production was "far better than the Broadway production"; although he still thought the play had "basic dramatic flaws", the new production humanized the characters (especially Henny) and offered "a clearer picture of the play's possibilities and the playright's intentions." Gussow also reviewed a 1986 Off-Broadway production at the Perry Street Theatre and found that "the play has kept its assets and its flaws intact"; he thought that the play's structure "still seems like two disparate one-act dialogues sewn together to make up a full-length play" but that "it is more interesting than many other current plays" and that Anne Meara
Anne Meara
Anne Meara is an American actress and comedian. She and Jerry Stiller were a prominent 1960s comedy team, appearing as Stiller and Meara, and are the parents of actor/comedian Ben and actress Amy Stiller.- Personal life :...
's performance as Henny "reaches to the heart of the mother, offering a portrait of a woman flailing for life support."
The 1998 Signature Theatre Company production (which revised the structure to integrate the prologue into the first act) also met with critical approval. The New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
s Donald Lyons called it a "triumph", while Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby was an American film critic who became the chief film critic for The New York Times in 1969 and reviewed more than 1000 films during his tenure there.-Life and career:...
in the Times thought "Mary Louise Wilson
Mary Louise Wilson
Mary Louise Wilson is an American stage, film and television actress.-Stage:Broadway* Hot Spot — 1963 as Sue Ann* Flora, The Red Menace — 1965 as Comrade Ada* Lovers and Other Strangers — 1968 as Bernice...
's performance as the old lady" was "viciously articulate", and he characterized the play as "a way station between the playwright's first major work, The House of Blue Leaves
The House of Blue Leaves
The House of Blue Leaves is a play by American playwright John Guare, first staged in 1966 by Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut....
(1971), and his last hit, Six Degrees of Separation (1990)." Later writers about Guare have called Bosoms and Neglect a "finely balanced work which moves from wild comedy . . . to a beautifully modulated second act" and "one of Guare's best plays".