''Before You Go'' is a 1968 comedy play by
Lawrence Holofcener
Lawrence Holofcener (February 23, 1926 – March 4, 2017) was an American-British sculptor, poet, lyricist, playwright, novelist, actor and director. He held British and American dual citizenship.
Early life
Holofcener was born in Baltimore, Ma ...
about the relationship between an actress and a sculptor.
The original Broadway production starred
Marian Seldes
Marian Hall Seldes (August 23, 1928 – October 6, 2014) was an American actress. A five-time Tony Award nominee, she won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for '' A Delicate Balance'' in 1967, and received subsequent nominations ...
and
Gene Troobnick.
The critic from ''Time'' magazine praised the play, saying that :
The two character man-woman play is now a Broadway staple. Lawrence Holofcener's ''Before You Go'' ranks with ''Two for the Seesaw
''Two for the Seesaw'' is a 1962 American romantic-drama film directed by Robert Wise and starring Robert Mitchum and Shirley MacLaine. It was adapted from the 1958 Broadway play written by William Gibson with Henry Fonda and Anne Bancroft (who ...
'' and ''The Owl and the Pussycat
"The Owl and the Pussy-cat" is a nonsense poem by Edward Lear, first published in 1870 in the American magazine '' Our Young Folks: an Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls'' and again the following year in Lear's own book ''Nonsense Songs, S ...
'' as the best of the genre. Wry, perceptive, honest, sad, funny and tender, it is compassionately discerning about two people who are not quite wise to themselves.
, The critic from the ''New York Times'' was less enthusiastic but said the play "unwinds pleasantly enough."
The play only ran for 29 performances. It was profiled in the
William Goldman
William Goldman (August 12, 1931 – November 16, 2018) was an American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. He first came to prominence in the 1950s as a novelist before turning to screenwriting. He won Academy Awards for his screenplays '' ...
book ''
The Season: A Candid Look at Broadway''. Goldman said the play "arrived to mixed notices, aroused no public interest whatsoever (it grossed less in five weeks on Broadway than Fiddler on the Roof does on Saturday), and closed with a loss of $150,000, remarkable for a one-set, two-character play." He felt "Marian Seldes was so touching, so sad, so vulnerable as the homely girl that she made the whole thing true" but believed that, because Seldes was "homely... a tall, gawky graceless thing" that "the laughter in Before You Go, much of it caused by Miss Seldes’ brilliant performance, never came easily or wholeheartedly because it was too true, and because it was true, too painful."
The play was produced in London in 1969 and Washington in 1970.
References
External links
*{{ibdb title, id=3113, title=Before You Go
1968 plays
Comedy plays