The Peccadillo Theater Company presents a pair of one act plays by Thornton Wilder, 'The Long Christmas Dinner' and 'Pullman Car Hiawatha.' More…
'The Long Christmas Dinner' traverses 90 years in the life of a single American family as they gather around the dining room table for a holiday celebration. As characters enter through the 'portal of life' and exit through the 'portal of death' we begin to perceive the patterns of behavior within this comically extended family as well as the essential values of every generation.
'Pullman Car Hiawatha' follows a disparate collection of characters bound for Chicago during the holiday season. No ordinary train, this Pullman car allows us to eavesdrop on the thoughts and feelings of its many passengers, creating a cacophony of self-absorbed humanity.
See it if u want to see an expert prod. of TW's 'mundane to the cosmic' style of playwriting. It's thrilling, extraordinary and suddenly emotional.YES
Don't see it if Wilder looks sentimentality, bathos and the mawkish right in the eye, sand in my shoos cross the line. Makes your blood boil? Skip it.
See it if Classic American plays
Don't see it if Dislike the above
See it if You'll enjoy Wilder's cosmic/classical narratives where the profound is expressed through the mundane. Brilliant theater earnestly delivered
Don't see it if Grand, sawing the air, performances will keep you from absorbing the early work of one of America's greatest dramatists.
See it if You like shows that take place around Christmas & were written by Thornton Wilder (Our Town, Skin of Our Teeth).
Don't see it if You don't want to see two short plays in a night instead of one longer play. You don't enjoy quieter shows & prefer a lot of action.
See it if you are a fan of Wilder and his style of writing - these are not among his best pieces and there's a reason these are rarely performed
Don't see it if you expect beautiful story telling and uplifting holiday stories; you don't like audience participation (I hate that in the theater)
See it if You enjoy Wilder and one acts
Don't see it if You are expecting a typical 2 act play, rather it is two one acts in extremely different time periods
See it if You want to see Wilder experimenting with early modernist techniques to explore the theme of the importance of common, everyday events.
Don't see it if You don't like 1) non-realistic situations & confusing story lines, or 2) a director's addition of audience participation (I didn't like)
See it if Like Christmas
Don't see it if Don't like Christmas
See it if You love theater and chrias
Don't see it if If you are the grinch
See it if The work was as good a revival of the early Wilder as any I've seen. It's worth a trip.
Don't see it if you have no interest in these early plays.