A. R. Gurney Summary

A. R. Gurney is one of the few major playwrights to emerge in the 1960s and maintain a flourishing stage career four decades later. His plays continue to be performed widely Off-Broadway and in reside... Read more

Critical Essay by Martin Gottfried I don't know whether A. R. Gurney, Jr.'s "Scenes From American Life" can really be called a theatre piece…. But whatever it is ca... Read more

Critical Essay by John Simon Some plays are too small for the theater, for television, for anything except the author's memory, his heart, and a bureau drawer. Such a one is A. R. Gurney Jr.&#... Read more

Critical Essay by John Simon Shaw, as he himself put it, wrote "plays pleasant and unpleasant"; Anouilh, in his own words, produced "black plays" and "rosy plays.&#... Read more

Critical Essay by Richard Gilman A. R. Gurney Jr. has a wonderful name for the kind of work he does, an unmistakably American name from its initials to its "Jr." What Gurney does is wri... Read more

Critical Essay by Brendan Gill In the program accompanying "The Golden Age,"… we learn that the play was "suggested" by Henry James's novella "The Asp... Read more

Critical Essay by Sandy Wilson Until I went to see Children … I had no idea how conditioned I had become to modern play-writing. During the first couple of scenes four characters appeared: a M... Read more

Critical Essay by Martin Gottfried A. R. Gurney's ["Children"] means to be about the childhood relationships that are never outgrown—those between siblings, those between ... Read more

Critical Essay by The Virginia Quarterly Review This thoroughly enjoyable novel [Entertaining Strangers] is a devastatingly funny and highly sophisticated dissection of the academic life. It will be ... Read more

Critical Essay by Gerald Weales The central character of Gurney's [The Dining Room] is the setting. It is a well-appointed dining room, old style, one that conjures formal family meals and all... Read more