On Seeing, A Journal. #310

July 16th, 2019

“ABOVE and BEYOND: Interviews and Portraits of Extraordinary People in our Time”, John Guare, Playwright

The cast of my ongoing project Above and Beyond was joined, recently – and perhaps fittingly – by the great American playwright John Guare. He is best known for his plays “Six Degrees of Separation,” “The House of Blue Leaves,” and “Landscape of the Body.”

Guare, born in New York City, now 80 years old, wrote his first play when he was 11.

His style, which mixes comic invention with an acute sense of the failure of human relations and aspirations, is at once cruel and deeply compassionate.

Guare’s plays have won every imaginable award, among them, many Obies, the Laurence Olivier American Airlines Award for Best New Play, several Tony awards, New York Drama Critics awards, and the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award for a Master American Dramatist.

Click on the arrow to watch and listen (4 minutes, 46 seconds).

The participants in this project have been selected for their exceptional achievements; they include scientists, authors, playwrights, designers, musicians, artists, philosophers, etc.

For your interest, the complete library for all the weekly, On Seeing missives can be found here.