For the eighth volume in this series, Lawrence Harbison selected seven outstanding new works by promising playwrights, and I felt a surge of positive energy about the book when I noticed that two plays I'd seen and loved were included. Carlos Murillo's dark play or stories for boys justifiably won several awards for its West Coast premiere last fall at Pasadena, Calif.'s Theatre@Boston Court. It's a caustically funny, mildly frightening play — about the deception and danger of cyberspace chatting — bolstered by its intelligent exploration of contemporary social phenomena.
I also saw writer-performer Nilaja Sun's solo drama No Child... in its March run at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City. This gripping story, inspired by Sun's experiences teaching in New York's toughest public schools, is more rewarding in the viewing than in the reading — due to Sun's astonishing gift for mimicry and characterization — yet the remarkable writing overflows with poetic grace.
The five other selections are worthy inclusions to varying degrees. Anna Ziegler's BFF, about the friendship between two teenage girls and its long-range effect on one of them, is poignant and fascinating, though indulgent. Judicious pruning would be beneficial. Scott Sickles' Intellectuals, about a long-married psychologist who suddenly dabbles in lesbianism, is a crisp and sophisticated comedy that a talented director could parlay into a four-star crowd pleaser. Bathsheba Doran's Living Room in Africa, about a couple who have moved to an African village to set up a museum only to discover the community ravaged by AIDS, is a thoughtful and moving drama laced with ironic humor, compromised a bit by a melodramatic climax.
Bruce Norris' delicious dark comedy The Pain and the Itch is a raucous send-up of shallow values and moral hypocrisy in America. And Kathryn Walat's Victoria Martin: Math Team Queen, about a popular high school girl whose acceptance onto the math team challenges the comfort level of the boys, is like a 21st-century update of 1980s Brat Pack flicks, but far wittier.