Humpty Dumpty and Other Plays

Eric Bogosian is one of our most singular and exhilarating commentators on American life. His award-winning solo performance works have been performed with acclaim all over the world. As the New York Times has pointed out, “Bogosian is a born storyteller with perfect pitch.” That is never more evident than in his newest book, which collects his three most recent plays. In Humpty Dumpty, five friends gather for a holiday at a mountain getaway where unforeseen events bring them to the brink of the end of the world; Griller, set in a New Jersey backyard, where a barbecue gathering turns sinister and deadly; and Red Angel, Bogosian’s riff on Von Sternberg’s The Blue Angel, reset on a college campus in 1990s New England.

“I want theater to wake me up, not lull me to sleep. My theater is not about fantasy, it’s not about seduction. My theater is not an outline for a film. It is not a TV sitcom onstage. I want my theater to be an event. I want it to push limits, bite the hand that feeds it and bang heads. It’s about my fears, my ideas, my blind spots, my isolation.”—Eric Bogosian

Eric Bogosian is the author of five plays including Talk Radio and subUrbia, as well as three Obie Award-winning solos: Drinking in America; Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll; Pounding Nails in the Floor with My Forehead and his most recent, Wake Up and Smell the Coffee, which was nominated for a Drama Desk Award. He wrote the screenplay adaptations of his first two plays, receiving the Berlin Film Festival’s “Silver Bear” for his work in Talk Radio. Simon and Schuster will publish his second novel in 2005.