Anne Washburn

This play has three (long) acts. The first investigates a post-apocalyptic society in the near future, where survivors of disaster try to remember episodes of The Simpsons in order to entertain themselves. The second act takes place seven years later with the same characters. The performance of Simpsons episodes has become an integral part of the society rising up in this post-electric world. The third and final act, 75 years later, is a retelling of a Simpsons episode in grand "ancient play" style, almost like a miracle play crossed with Shakespeare. Clearly, the Simpsons have taken on a new meaning in this new post-electric world.

This would be a better play to watch than read, for sure. So many of the lines are overlapping attempts at remembering Simpsons dialogue. You do not have to be a fan of the Simpsons to understand main points of the plot. It strikes me as a director that the play would be difficult to stage in that it runs pretty long - especially the beginning and the final act are tedious at times. But it's really interesting thematically as a look at storytelling and human nature.… (meer)

I imagine this play would be a lot more fun to watch than it was to read. So much of what happens seems to rely on the creative use of sound and staging in order to pull off the events.

That being said, this adaptation is definitely an interesting way of tying together a bunch of disparate episodes of "The Twilight Zone" into some kind of coherent two hour play. It's very disjointed and it takes some time to get used to how Washburn is telling the story, but in that very disjointed nature lies one of the best examinations of this fictional Twilight Zone.

It's always been sort of implied that many of the stories presented in the original series could have taken place in the same weird, otherworldly universe, but this play goes a long way toward making that explicit. The way the narrator appears and disappears, how different characters randomly zone out and start reciting some of the famous Twilight Zone monologue, how various characters from different episodes all interact with each other, and even the very last scene of the play all work together to give audiences a better glimpse at the actual Twilight Zone. It's this weird realm where anything is possible and time doesn't matter and all these different things happen at once and also don't happen. It's a clever way to bring these stories to the stage without just doing a series of one act plays.

It's a bit of a confusing read, but once you get the hang of the style, it's pretty enjoyable. I can only imagine how fun it would be to watch.… (meer)

A few months after the breakdown of society, a group of survivors try to remember the plot of episodes of The Simpsons to entertain and distract themselves from the world falling apart around them and the deaths of their loved ones. Several years later, various theater troupes perform elaborate productions of episodes of The Simpsons, and trade half-remembered lines from them like currency. Many, many years later, humanity has devolved into nothing but a twisted, cult-like reenactment of The Simpsons, with all the plots and characters muddled together. Nelson raps a lot.

It's a really fascinating concept, similar to Station Eleven. How will the entertainment of today affect us in a future where society has broken down? What will we remember in the first couple years and what will be eternal? In the first act there is lots of talk about what is going on in the world and where people's loved ones might be. In the second act there is a little talk of interpersonal relations. The third act is entirely Simpsons-ified.

The execution of this interesting concept in written form is a total nightmare. I'm sure it's different when seen on stage, but reading this play in a book was like reading a transcript of a poorly-spoken person trying to answer a question that they don't know the answer to. Characters speak over each other constantly and repeat the same word or phrase several times and speak entirely in long strings of sentence fragments without punctuation. This is definitely how people actually speak sometimes, but reading it on a page is deeply unpleasant. I would probably see a production of a play written by Anne Washburn, but I won't read any more.… (meer)