Summary

The introduction is written by Samuel G. Freedman, “a columnist for the New York Times, a journalism professor at Columbia University, and the author of eight books” (Introduction, ix). He writes of how the play captured the mood and issues of the country in the midst of the 2016 presidential election campaign, particularly issues related to income inequality, downsizing of businesses, and the creeping, deepening fear on both sides of the political equation.

Freedman then describes how the background of playwright Stephen Karam (growing up in blue-collar Scranton, Pennsylvania) prepared him for the work of writing his plays. Freedman also says that all that preparation has culminated in Karam’s work on “The Humans” which, Freedman says, follows in the tradition of other great American plays (“Long Day’s Journey into Night,” “Death of a Salesman,” “The Glass Menagerie,” “A Lie of the Mind,” “Fences...