Love! Valor! Compassion! and A Perfect Ganesh: Two Plays

by Terrence McNally

Product Details 272 pages Plume (July 1, 1995) English

Genres: Plays, Drama, Fiction, Theatre, LGBT

272 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Terrence McNally was an American playwright, librettist, and screenwriter. Described as "the bard of American theater" and "one of the greatest contemporary playwrights the theater world has yet produced," McNally was the recipient of five Tony Awards. He won the Tony Award for Best Play for Love! Valour!

Reviews

[John Geddie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw the movie back in the day and the play is just as good, one of the best second wave AIDS-era plays. I need to do a bit of research, the set design doesn't quite sit in my head (summer house, the lake, the garden, etc.) so it might be more difficult. The dialogue is just electric even if some of the references skew a little 90s dated. 7M.

A Perfect Ganesh (the other play in this collection) doesn't speak as much too me, but it's still very readable with some moments of real wisdom. It floats between a bunch of locations, but the magical style of the narrative lends to a more impressionist approach anyway. 2M/2F

[Bryant · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Love! Valour! Compassion!" was the first play I saw on Broadway, when I was a senior in college, before I found out I'd be moving to NYC later that year. It was also one of the only pieces of art, certainly the only play, that I'd seen at that point that showed me what gay relationships could look like, what gay friendships could be. Forever grateful to Terrence McNally for that.

[Scott Vandrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful play, as timely as it is timeless. We lost a hero of the American stage this month, and this play is an amazing example of his mastery.

[behsforensics]

Cutting is for A Perfect Ganesh
By Terrence McNally

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Love, Valour" is a sweet play (also a Hollywood movie)about the summer weekends spent by a group of gay male friends at the Long Island home of one of them. Beautifully written, hilarious at times, tearful at others-- like any moving play should be. If you have a chance to see a performance or rent the film-- just do it! He adapted his script for the screen and it has almost all of the original Nt Broadway cast. If you don't like reading plays, this might be hard to swallow, b/c he didn't write it in a tradition "character enters, speaks, sits, leaves" kind of a way. Much more fluid and disjointed. Still a wonderful read.

"Perfect Ganesh" is one of his (now) lesser-known pieces. It's about a woman trying to find herself/the meaning of life/escape her recent trajedies(the death of her son) on holiday in India. Another moving, very non-linear script. Also quite wonderful. The plays are a very smart pairing.

[David Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

McNally is one of my favorite contemporary playwright and "Love! Valor! Compassion!" is one of his finest plays. It runs the gamut of topics, encompassing love, death, infidelity, socioeconomic issues...the works, as it follows a group of gay male friends over the course of a summer in the 1990s. "A Perfect Ganesh" is a very nice piece, about two older women who take a vacation together to India. I enjoyed it very much, though it didn't have the same impact as its companion piece. 5 stars for "Love! Valor! Compassion!" and 4 stars for "A Perfect Ganesh."

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This might be a five when staged. The first half of the play was confusing because the characters have a lot of overlap in characterization and the relationships are hard to follow. In this very modern overlapped and imagined style the visualization is more challenging. In any event, the third act wraps up the various subplots nicely.

[Chrissy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just adore this play.

[Ayne Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

A strong offering by one of modern theatre's best playwrights. Despite it's popularity I don't find it to be his best work, but it illustrates his talent and promise.

[Andrew Benvenuti · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my all time favorite plays by one of my all time favorite play writes.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

another show would love to see.