Richard Maxwell, "Evening Plays" (Theatre Communications Group, 2020)

New Books in Literature

Evening Plays (Theatre Communications Group, 2020) collects three plays by experimental playwright Richard Maxwell. The plays are inspired by Dante's Divine Comedy, and all three concern death and dying. The Evening focuses on characters whose lives revolve around cage-fighting and drinking, and also includes searing meditations on the process of dying. Samara reads a bit like a western, though one filtered through a mystic sensibility reminiscent of Jorge Luis Borges. Paradiso is, like its Dantean precursor, a fractured, future-oriented work that exists on the border of the human.

Videos of many of Maxwell's plays, including the three discussed in this interview, can be found on Vimeo at https://vimeo.com/nycplayers.

Several of his paintings are currently on view between Dunkin’ Donuts and Frames Bowling Alley on the second floor of the south building at Port Authority Bus Terminal.

Andy Boyd is a playwright based in Brooklyn, New York. He is a graduate of the playwriting MFA at Columbia University, Harvard University, and the Arizona School for the Arts.

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