The Washington Post and New York Times are reporting the death of playwright Terrence McNally at the age of 81, due to complications from coronavirus. The winner of four Tonys, McNally was a prolific dramatist throughout his long career, but is probably best known for his plays, Love! Valor! Compassion! (1995) and Master Class (1996), and his books for the musicals Kiss of the Spider Woman (1993) and Ragtime (1998).
I'm chagrinned to see that the list of 300+ books we've read (faithfully updated by our blogmaster, Tim Walton) does not include any of McNally's works. Perhaps that's an omission we might wish to rectify when we conduct our next nomination/voting process? I was planning to do that this spring, by the way, but since we still have plenty of titles from our last balloting left to schedule, and Lord only knows when we'll be able to resume meeting, I'm inclined to wait until the fall.
Our friend Ken Jost notes that "Terrence McNally: Every Act of Life," a documentary about the playwright's life and career, aired on PBS on June 14, 2019, as part of the network's "American Masters" series. And here are Post theater critic Peter Marks' lovely tribute, and a roundup of some
Times reviews of McNally's creations over the years.
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3 comments:
Unfortunately you're right — we've never even voted on reading anything by Terrence McNally! Ten years ago I read "Some Men" (his latest play then) but found that only a middling representative of his oeuvre. Then one thing led to another … and now he's dead.
We'll get to McNally in a not-so-roundabout way later this year. BookMen DC has scheduled a discussion of the play "The Inheritance" which was produced by McNally's husband Tom Kirdahy. The author Matthew Lopez had a lot of professional contact with McNally, sought advice from him, and considered him (interview with the LA Times) his "spiritual godfather." But yes, it's an oversight that we never read any McNally work.
I wasn't aware of that spousal connection, Lee; thanks for flagging that! And as to Tim's point, I occasionally thought about nominating "Love! Valor! Compassion!" but never did--not sure why not. Happily, literature is immortal even though authors are not.
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