A. R. Gurney, Vol. II: Collected Plays, 1974-1983 (Contemporary American Playwrights) (A. R. Gurney Collected Plays)

The six plays in this collection all link personal and cultural change. Two are set in summer places, where families go for awhile every year as a release from where they live the rest of the time. One is set in an early twentieth century city in transition, while another takes place in a motel--by definition a place of passage. Two are set in particular rooms: a dining room, and the trophy room of a private club. The nostalgic appeal of these plays arises from their delightfully comprehensive anthropological accuracy. Not only are they an encyclopedia of droll, even arcane cultural ritual, but they are written in the perfectly pitched, dry, and very funny voice of the participants themselves. Yet even as Pete Gurney is fondly evoking this world, he shows it to be under siege, not from without, but from within. - David Trainer, Introduction