Year: 2005
Type: article
Abstract: Ever the one to serve up old whines in new battles, Woody Allen replays familiar themes and strategies in his three new one-act plays.Indeed, the familiarity of his material by now approximates to ritual.But a close examination finds fresh nuance and development.Moreover, as their coincidental language and themes make the plays a triptych, even a familiar element gains new meaning from the enlarged context.Like most of his films since Annie Hall (1977) and Manhattan (1979), the trilogy deals with amoral rationalization, betrayal, and infidelity among the urbane intelligentsia.As he anatomizes his neighborhood's Civilization and Its Discontents, each title cites a location that connotes class, affluence, and sophistication-"Riverside Drive," "Old Saybrook," "Central Park West"-yet the relationships prove savage.The first and third refer to Allen's own Upper West Side.The first play's hero, Jim Swain, lives at Central Park West and 78 th . 1 The middle setting offers escape, to the Connecticut slick of Annie Hall's alien gentile/genteel family-but which also includes the psychopathic brother Duane (Christopher Walken).As the setting returns home, the lead characters return to their original relationships, their escapes thwarted.They clutch their illusions with the bittersweet resignation that closes The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), where Cecilia (Mia Farrow) sinks back hopeless into her fantasies.The first two plays were originally produced by Atlantic Theatre Company in New York under the title Writer's Block (2003), with Allen's debut as stage director.They center upon-as it happens-blocked writers.Freed from blockage, the third presents the disintegration of a successful psychoanalyst, her marriage, her friendships, and finally her illusions.Taken as a whole, the three plays detail the frustrations of modern intellectuals as they confront their mortality, cosmic doom, and the destructive compulsions of contemporary (a)morality.*** In "Riverside Drive," 50-ish writer Jim Swain is accosted by a "large, unsavory type" actually named Fred Savage, a roughened alternative to the courtly "swain." 2 Savage is an admitted mental case who believes he receives orders from radio Maurice Yacowar is Professor of English and Film Studies at The University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada.His books include Hitchcock's British Films, Loser Take All: The Comic Art of Woody Allen, and The Sopranos on the Couch: Analyzing Television's Greatest Series.
Author: Maurice Yacowar
Language: English
Topic: Cinema History and Criticism
Subfield: Visual Arts and Performing Arts
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1951028565