Skip to main content

The Connection by Jack Gelber


I just finished reading a play called The Apple.  It was written by Avant Garde playwright Jack Gelber, and it was produced off-Broadway by New York's The Living Theatre, the "in' place for surreal plays in the 1950's and 60's.  I was interested in the work, so I checked it out.

While researching this playwright, I found that he has a previous play that was VERY well received off-Broadway called The Connection.  In fact, this work won the 1959–60 Village Voice Obie Award for Best New Play, Best All-Around Production, and Best Actor.  In addition, it won the 1959–60 Vernon Rice Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Off-Broadway Theatre, and the 1960 Grand Prix for Best Play at the Theatre des Nacions, Paris.  A feature film was produced in 1961 directed by Shirley Clarke, an American experimental filmmaker.

Have any of you other theatre geeks out there ever heard of this play?  Have you seen the movie?  Please comment and tell me if you have, and don't forget to tell me what you think of surreal works like this!

Comments

  1. Mel NievesAugust 21, 2021 at 10:52 PM

    You don't have to be a theatre geek to know this play or any of the experimental theatre pieces created by The Living Theatre, La MaMa or Cafe Chino. You just had to attend a good theatre program with good theatre instructor's that encouraged to go (if you lived in New York) to the Lincoln Center Library of Performing Arts.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tooting My Own Horn!

It's summertime, and most theatre directors are reading possible shows to produce this upcoming year. Well, look no further! I've got some published works available through Next Stage Press, as well as some I hope to have published soon. Check them out! Published: MINOR INCONVENIENCES by Bradley Nies Cast Size: 2M 1W Running Time: 40 minutes After hitchhiking along Houston’s busy FM 1960, a young waitress comes face to face with an unlikely duo who claim to be responsible for the minor inconveniences in our lives. Excellent for Middle School/ Junior High/Community Theatre [Comedy/Drama) www.nextstagepress.com/minor-inconveniences-perfect-mother/ PERFECT MOTHER by Bradley Nies Cast Size: 1M 1W Running Time: 40 minutes A single mother living in a small Texas town will do anything to keep her daughter happy…including blackmail, lying, causing personal injury, and even murder! Junior High/High School/Community Theatre (Drama) www.nextstagepress.com/minor-inconveniences-perfect-moth...
Post a Comment
Read more

Enter Three Murderers: Three Halloween Stories with a Nod to William Shakespeare

  I am thrilled to announce that I've had a play chosen to be performed at Paris Junior College's 10th Annual Pyro Play Festival . This annual short-play festival will take place on the school's campus and run April 23rd through April 27th . There will be other unpublished works produced at the festival, and I am honored to have one of my plays showcased alongside the works of such highly talented playwrights! My play is titled, Enter Three Murderers: Three Halloween Stories with a Nod to William Shakespeare . This "monologue play" tells three separate stories of real-life killers who carried out their gruesome deeds on or about Halloween. In doing so, the audience is shown how their deeds mirror those of three murderers from Shakespeare's plays, specifically Macbeth , Titus Andronicus , and Arden of Faversham . In Scene I, we meet Nancy, a jovial grandmother from Tulsa, Oklahoma, who decides that murdering husbands is the only way she will find true happines...
Post a Comment
Read more

Dean Corll and The Boys from Houston Heights

  Today marks the 49th anniversary of the death of Houston serial killer Dean Corll.  Next year will mark the 50th anniversary of Corll's murder, as well as a time when so many Houstonians found out just what horrible fate befell the missing boys who crossed Dean Corrl's path.  My play, The Boys for Houston Heights, not only serves as a docudrama about Corll's early murders, it touches upon Houston's "lost boys" and what their parents were feeling during that time.  For those who are into true crime and what to learn more about this dark time in Houston's history, I have included a list of books, plays, and movies that tell the story of what people in 1973 referred to as The Houston Mass Murders: The Boys from Houston Heights  by Bradley Nies.  (Next Stage Press, 2018) The Candy Man:  The True Story of Serial Killer Dean Corll by Jessi Dilman.  (Trellis Publishing, 2021) The Clown and the Candy Man directed by Marcus Valentin.  (Cineflex P...
Post a Comment
Read more