Howard Barker
Durang’s Dysfunctional Home Life; Barker’s Stubborn Renaissance Painter
The Marriage of Bette and Boo, Christopher Durang’s dark 1985 comedy about his own nutty family that has received a sparkling revival at the Laura Pels Theatre, is a peculiar pleasure.
Mr. Durang has furtively written a tragedy disguised as mad farce. His famously absurdist comedy is good-natured and grotesque, and awfully sad, especially when it becomes alarmingly clear that his apparently adorably eccentric family is more or less insane.
That we might easily find ourselves identifying with Mr. Durang’s lunatic cast of characters is all to the good. The Marriage of Bette and Boo is the modern comedy about dysfunctional American family life (predating by a generation the excesses of August: Osage County). read more »
