Marie and Bruce

by Wallace Shawn

Book Overview

When Marie decides to leave Bruce, she delivers herself of a torrent of ferocious humor and foul-mouthed vituperation concerning him and their marriage, not to mention love, hate, caring, commitment, and all the other current clich?s about relationships. As he follows Marie and Bruce through breakfast, a friend's party, and dinner, Wallace Shawn brilliantly orchestrates her savage attacks and his slyly passive defenses into a symphony of subversive...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802130186
• ISBN13: 9780802130181
• Release Date: January 1994
• Publisher: Grove Press
• Length: 80 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.4" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Very few people have ear and nerve...

...but Wallace Shawn has it in spades. I read Fever in an hour. Short solid piece that would be claustrophobic to put on the way he wants. (In groups of 10-12 people in homes, rather than in a theater) But the theme has been done just as well, in other plays and monologues. Marie and Bruce- harsh, visceral funny, and I can't think any work that better illustrates the worthlessness of language. Miscommunication is my favorite theme, and this play shows it's hand at that in different ways (party banter, "lover's" spat, what isn't said but hangs in the air like an albatross about to meet it's fate) to great effect. People have misread it before (not here, I haven't read these) claiming Marie to be a shrew, and there to be nothing going on or that the play goes "nowhere" without letting the play fully unfold before them. All communication inevitably and inherently lacks. It is the great leveling field. Watching the characters NOT interact, and go nowhere hits like a sucker punch, for we're all suckers aren't we. Fools to think we have meaning. Laughable that we assume we are connecting. Yeah, I laughed 'till I cried with this one. Wouldn't miss it for the world.Fans of Semiotext(e)USA might like this.