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Gurney, A(lbert) R(amsdell), Jr.
Gurney, A[lbert] R[amsdell], Jr. (b. 1930), playwright. A native of Buffalo, New York, he studied at Williams College and at Yale and for years supplemented his writing income by teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His plays reveal him as the logical heir to Philip Barry and S. N. Behrman, time and again presenting an amused look at rich WASP American society, in which mothers doggedly try to squelch their daughters' intellectual aspirations, and shallowness and lovelessness are kept from chaos by a studied observance of polite form. Among his more noted plays have been Scenes from American Life (1971), The Dining Room (1982), The Middle Ages (1982), and The Perfect Party (1986). All these were mounted Off Broadway and at regional theatres. Gurney's first play to reach Broadway was Sweet Sue (1987), but he had better luck Off Broadway with subsequent works such as The Cocktail Hour (1988), Love Letters (1989), Later Life (1993), Sylvia (1995), Overtime (1996), Labor Day (1998), Far East (1999), Ancestral Voices (1999), and O Jerusalem (2003).
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Cite this article
Gerald Bordman and Thomas S. Hischak. "Gurney, A(lbert) R(amsdell), Jr." The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. 31 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. Gerald Bordman and Thomas S. Hischak. "Gurney, A(lbert) R(amsdell), Jr." The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. (May 31, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O149-GurneyAlbertRamsdellJr.html Gerald Bordman and Thomas S. Hischak. "Gurney, A(lbert) R(amsdell), Jr." The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. 2004. Retrieved May 31, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O149-GurneyAlbertRamsdellJr.html |
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Gurney, A(lbert) R(amsdell), Jr.
Gurney, A[lbert] R[amsdell], Jr. (1930–), graduated from Williams College, after graduate study at Yale became a teacher of literature at MIT (1960–87) until he left to devote himself fully to his already distinguished career of writing for the theater. His canon includes at least 17 plays, beginning with Golden Fleece (1969). They are known for a limited number of characters, frequently set in his hometown of Buffalo's elegant upper‐class society, with some sophisticated humor as in The Dining Room (1981) and The Cocktail Hour (1987), among his most popular works. In Later Life (1993), a sad comedy, a middle‐aged banker is trapped in Bostonian aristocratic gentility and feels out of place in a democratic society. This man, Austin, meets an old almost‐lover, Ruth, at a cocktail party, and the play is about the reunion.
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Cite this article
James D. Hart and and Phillip W. Leininger. "Gurney, A(lbert) R(amsdell), Jr." The Oxford Companion to American Literature. 1995. Encyclopedia.com. 31 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. James D. Hart and and Phillip W. Leininger. "Gurney, A(lbert) R(amsdell), Jr." The Oxford Companion to American Literature. 1995. Encyclopedia.com. (May 31, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O123-GurneyAlbertRamsdellJr.html James D. Hart and and Phillip W. Leininger. "Gurney, A(lbert) R(amsdell), Jr." The Oxford Companion to American Literature. 1995. Retrieved May 31, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O123-GurneyAlbertRamsdellJr.html |
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