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 The Perfectionist and Other Plays
by Joyce Carol Oates
Hopewell, NJ: Ecco Press, 1995
246 pages
Dust-Jacket Blurb
This intriguing collection consists of two full-length plays, The Perfectionist and Black, and nine one-act plays, many of which have been performed in major U.S. and European cities. Joyce Carol Oates is most popularly known for her novels and short stories, but in these plays she demonstrates her versatility and mastery of yet another form.
Nominated for a 1994 American Theatre Critics Award, The Perfectionist is a comedy of manners set in an affluent upper middle-class milieu. Black explores the potentially lethal triangular relationship between a white woman, her former husband, and her black lover. the subjects of the nine one-act plays range widely, from a beauty contest to a serial killing.
The most frequently produced of the plays, Ontological Proof of My Existence, involves an evening in the life of a reckless young woman whose father has come to rescue her from her charismatic pimp-lover.
Contents
The Interview
Gulf War
Negative
Here She Is!
The Sacrifice
The Rehearsal
Ontological Proof of My Existence
Homesick
Black
The Perfectionist
Reviews
- Library Journal, January, 1995, p102
- Booklist, January 15, 1995, p892
- Michigan Quarterly Review, Summer 1996, p570+
Awards
- American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award, nomination: The Perfectionist
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Excerpt
From HERE SHE IS!
Lights up on MISS MICHIGAN, who is already in her swimsuit, the shiny banner MISS MICHIGAN across her breasts. She strides out on the runway, very much in control; a sexy-jaunty swagger. Pauses on the runway, arms akimbo in a provocative pose.
MISS MICHIGAN: (dazzling smile) Everything I said about myself is true—I'm a straight-A student at Michigan State where I'm studying pre-med 'cause I hope to practice family medicine, I'm captain of the women's swim team, I'm a member of the NAACP and a volunteer Red Cross worker and I'm active in an anti-drug program in East Lansing and I'm a vegetarian and I just love Jane Austen and Wynton Marsalis—except—and here I did fib a little: I am not a Sunday School teacher, nor even a member of any church. (Pause) Why?—'cause I DON'T BELIEVE IN GOD.
Boos, catcalls.
MISS MICHIGAN: (Taking it all in with satisfaction) Right! this girl's a born FREE THINKER. Never could swallow that fairy tale shit of a BIG WHITE DADDY in the sky—or any DADDY at all.
Growing angry response.
MISS MICHIGAN: (Taunting) Uh-huh. There's more. Yo' looking at a RADICAL FEMINIST. (Pause.) There's more—yo' looking at a RADICAL LESBIAN FEMINIST. And these front teeth—(Taps them)—are FALSE.
Lights out to outraged response.
Lights up on MISS NEW YORK in her glamorous swimsuit, a shiny banner MISS NEW YORK across her breasts. Her beautiful hair has been cut and styled as a mohawk and she wears earring clamps and a nose ring.
MISS NEW YORK: (Beaming) Plus I vomit thrice daily to gorge and keep my figure; and I'm actually not a "miss"—I've been married and divorced three times.
Boos, catcalls, whistles.
MISS NEW YORK: To the same woman!
Lights out on MISS NEW YORK.
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Page address:
http://jco.usfca.edu/works/drama/perfectionist.html
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