
Dimes Square and Other Plays
Christian Lorentzen
(Introduction by)Description
Performed in loft apartments, pop-up theatres, and other nontraditional spaces, the 2022 underground hit Dimes Square announced Matthew Gasda as a dramatist of lasting power and impressive range, the theatrical chronicler of a self-chronicling generation. At a time when large, institutional theatres were still finding their post-pandemic footing, this brutal, hilarious portrait of New York City scenesters drew in new and diverse audiences by distilling the zeitgeist of our strange new era--a bitter cocktail of dirtbag politics, casual depravity, and pitiless ambition.
Bringing together four of Gasda's most penetrating works--Dimes Square, Quartet, Berlin Story, and Minotaur--this collection surveys a fractured and exhausted cultural-intellectual landscape. From squalid apartments to country estates to hipster bars, these plays give us characters grasping for meaning and human connection in an age of material abundance and moral dislocation. Unflinching, yet marked by exquisite moments of grace, they mark the arrival of a significant dramatic voice.
Product Details
Publisher | Applause Books |
Publish Date | May 15, 2023 |
Pages | 284 |
Language | English |
Type | |
EAN/UPC | 9781493075713 |
Dimensions | 8.8 X 6.1 X 0.8 inches | 0.9 pounds |
About the Author
Matthew Gasda grew up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. A dramatist, novelist, and poet, he is the author of fifteen plays and counting, including the acclaimed underground hit Dimes Square. He lives in New York City.
Reviews
"As a comedy of manners, [Dimes Square]is as good as it gets ... It's a generational snapshot--someone had to do it, and at least it's someone who knows how to write."
"Attending one of Matt Gasda's plays in the homemade theaters he finds across town, I feel like I'm part of his dark, funny visions of bohemia; and I feel very inspired to write more and be more ambitious, and I'm reminded of how stories can change your experience of life, how you can live your life as though it were a play, and create your own character, and write your own fortune.
"Decadent and delicious."
"Gasda has a deft, humorous touch and a rare talent for steering large numbers of characters."
"Gasda has an ear for repartee as sharp as Henri Cartier-Bresson's eye for immortalizing the 'decisive moment' in a photograph."
"Life and art tangle stickily together in these plays. Gasda holds a powder-smudged mirror up to our self-obsessed age."
"Matt Gasda is such an incisive playwright, I hesitate to chuck more adjectives in his direction--what if they're the wrong ones? His work is funny and lovely and human in the best way. Perhaps we are, as Nate from Dimes Square says, 'living through the dumbest time in human history, ' but here are four retorts."
"The plays never feel self-indulgent or claustrophobic. Instead, they are intelligent, light-footed, and witty ... Essential to Gasda's work is its willingness to skate in the direction of thin ice."
"What preserves [Dimes Square] from triviality (and, more damningly, from being boring) and elevates it to excellence is that, though this may be how things are, this is not how they should be."
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