The New Yorker: On a six-hour drive from San Francisco to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival a few years ago, the playwright Lauren Gunderson raised a question: What does American theatre need? “It was ridiculously presumptuous,” Gunderson told me recently, over the phone, “but it’s the conversation everyone is having.” Gunderson was travelling with her friend Margot Melcon, a former literary manager, who reminded her that every theatre needs a holiday show: something clever, heartwarming, and family-friendly enough to entice an audience inured to “A Christmas Carol.” Gunderson recalled their idea: “You know what people love? Jane Austen. You know what people really love? Christmas and Jane Austen.” By the time they finished the drive, they had outlined a script on Starbucks napkins: a holiday reunion for the Bennet sisters, from “Pride and Prejudice,” with a courtship plot for Mary, the pedantic middle sister, who emerges as a surprising feminist heroine. (Mary and her beau spark over a copy of Lamarck’s “Zoological Philosophy”; Gunderson calls Mary an emblem of “geek chic.”) “Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley” is now a regional-theatre hit.
1 comment:
I hadn’t heard of Lauren Gunderson prior to reading this article, though I recognized some of the titles of her plays, despite not having seen them. I assume her lack of notoriety comes from a combination of sexism, that newer plays aren’t taught in schools and therefore modern playwrights tend to be less well known, and the fact that people don’t really know of too many playwrights in general (I’d guess the average person on the street could probably name 3 at most, including Shakespeare). In general people tend to be more likely to know actors by name than playwrights by name, and I think that has something to do with the fact that actors are their product in a way, whereas for playwrights the play is their product. Regardless, I hope that people start to study Lauren Gunderson’s work in high school (it seems obvious given the popularity) and maybe eventually her name will join the names of other playwrights who people actually know about.
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