- The Glory of Living
The Glory of Living is a
1998 play byRebecca Gilman . The play received its first production at theCircle Theater inForest Park, Illinois . The play has won many awards and was a finalist for the2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama .Plot
The play opens with the main characters Lisa and Clint meeting for the first time. Clint has accompanied a friend to Lisa and her mother's
mobile home to see Lisa's mother, aprostitute . Clint picks up on Lisa's unease about her mother's situation and begins charming her. The next scene opens a few years later and Clint and Lisa have married and have twins who are being cared for by Lisa's mother. The couple has been living in a series ofmotel rooms and are plying a scam whereby Lisa lures young girls into the room where Clintrape s and abuses them. Afterwards, Lisamurder s the girls and disposes of their bodies. Plagued with guilt, Lisa calls thepolice with anonymous tips on the location of the bodies. Act I conludes with the couple's arrest.Act II deals primarily with the couple's punishments but focuses on Lisa and her motives for her actions. The audience is shown that Lisa has not been able to emotionally mature and that has led her to live the life she has lived.
Notable Performances
*
Royal Court Theater ,London ,1999 . Directed by Kathryn Hunter.
*MCC Theater ,New York 2001 directed byPhilip Seymour Hoffman withAnna Paquin as Lisa andJeffrey Donovan as Clint
*Dublin 2005 produced byAboutFACE Theatre Company atProject Arts Centre and at theCivic Theatre, Tallaght .Awards and recognition
*Finalist for the
2002 Pulitzer Prize in Drama.
*Joseph Jefferson Citation for Best Play inChicago .
*American Theatre Critics Association 'sOsborn Award for Best New American Play .External links
* [http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/gilmanr/gloryofl.htm The Complete Review]
* [http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/story/0,3604,322788,00.html Guardian review]
* [http://www.pulitzer.org/cyear/2002f.html 2002 Pulitzer Prizes]
* [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/01/AR2006060101951.html Washington Post Review]
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