Old Money - by Wendy Wasserstein

Still best known for The Heidi Chronicles, which won a Tony Award and a Pulitzer Prize in 1989, Wasserstein is a comic and satirical playwright who has carved out a target area defined by wealth and the rarefied air of privilege. Poking fun at members of the American aristocracy is easy, but Wasserstein also makes us care about them as people. Old Money is no exception. This is a comedy of manners the kind of play that is funny if the manners are bad enough. It is set in fashionable Manhattan during the Gilded Age and in the same place in our own more drab time, with both sets of characters played by the same actors. Here we observe how money changes a family over time. In the past, wealth resulted in architecture, some acquisition of art, parties for which people dressed up, and upstairs-downstairs intrigue. In the present, the same money results in posing, bad taste, awful art, parties for which people dress down, and still a bit of intrigue. Yet there is a strong sense here of life lived fully. Clever, entertaining, and thoughtful. Thomas E. Luddy, Salem State Coll., MA

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Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Released: 2002