cover design by Charles Rue Woods
cover art by Pierre Bonnard
MADAME MELVILLE and THE GENERAL FROM AMERICA
Richard Nelson
about MADAME MELVILLE:
"Nelson, in his 100-minute play,
intertwines two familiar themes: the sexual initiation of the young and the
confrontation of American innocence by European experience. His hero, Carl, now
married with children, reminisces about Paris is 1966. We see how, as
15-year-old student at the American school, he falls under the spell of a
beguiling literature teacher. One night, after an extramural film excursion,
Carl stays behind in her flat. For him, this offers a magical introduction to
the world of art, music, adult emotion and Kama Sutra sex. For Claudie,
the literature teacher, this brief encounter is largely a way of overcoming her
devastation at the breakup of an affair.
But what gives the play its peculiar charm is the tender collision between two
people at different stages of their emotional cycle: Carl has what Henry James
called "the hungry futurity of youth" while the messed-up Claudie has
the restless solitude of the permanent other woman.
...Nelson has pinned down with exact compassion what happens when two worlds
collide."
Michael Billington, The Guardian
"There's much talk of matters sensual
in the play and offstage there's the initiation of a minor; but sex isn't
exactly the theme. Rather it's about loneliness...
...there are moments when it threatens to decline into that cliché: liberal
fulfilling Paris...versus boring, restrictive Dumbsville, Ohio. But Nelson, an
American dramatist much performed in Britain, proves himself defter, subtler
than that"
The London Times
"What makes the play so special is the
vivid precision of the writing...
Nelson...achieves a surprising variety of emotion on what might seem a narrow
dramatic canvas.
At times the comedy is unashamedly broad...
Yet the writing also cuts remarkably deep, not least in the subtly understated
closing moments when mortality suddenly intrudes on this Arcadian idyll.
For beyond the touching sexual comedy, MADAME MELVILLE is an exquisitely painful
reminder of lost love, lost innocence and lost youth."
The Daily Telegraph
2m, 2f, unit set
Originally produced at the Vaudeville Theatre in London with Macaulay Culkin and Irène Jacob, subsequently presented at the Promenade Theatre in New York with Macaulay Culkin and Joely Richardson.
about THE GENERAL FROM AMERICA
"THE GENERAL FROM AMERICA is a rich, rare and remarkable triumph on the stage...in play after play, Nelson has established himself as that contemporary stage rarity, a civilized, urbane, literate, acidic ironist in an age of urban thuggery."
Sheridan Morley, The Spectator
12m, 5f
Originally performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Published by Grove Press, ISBN: 0-8021-3844-6; $13.95