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Yankee Tavern
Book by Steven Dietz
- GenresPlays
59 pages, Paperback
First published June 30, 2010
41 people want to read
About the author
Steven Dietz
45 books18 followersSteven Dietz is an American playwright whose work is largely performed regionally, i.e. outside of New York City. Born and raised in Denver, Colorado, Dietz graduated in 1980 with a Theater degree from the University of Northern Colorado. He is the recipient of the PEN U.S.A. Award in Drama (for Lonely Planet); the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award (Fiction and Still Life With Iris); and the Lila Wallace/Reader's Digest Award (The Rememberer). Halcyon Days is one of his other successful plays. Many of his plays are very political. He lives in Seattle.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 28, 2022
A wonderful play that talks about stories told in bars. In today’s environment this play resonates more powerfully than it’s probably intended to do. I certainly read it with different eyes than I would have before 2016.
March 25, 2018
The thing that hit me hardest while reading this play? 9/11 is now a thing people write plays about.
The synopsis of Yankee Tavern suggests that this is a show about the conspiracy theories that sprung up in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks, and while it certainly is, it’s also about the broader ideas of truth, fact, and belief. How (and maybe a little bit why) we look so hard for reasons not to believe what’s plainly in front of our eyes.
But as I type that previous sentence, I’m not sure to what I am referring: the accepted narratives, or the “coincidences” and cast-aside information that conspiracy theorists use to counter those narratives. I’ve always bought into the narratives...but are the coincidences really so coincidental? I both love and hate that this play is making me think about how we come to accept what is true as the Truth-with-a-capital-T. That said, I’m not about to turn full Tinfoil Hat, but like...what if we’re wrong? Steven Dietz’s play is nothing if not thought-provoking.
Concept aside, the characters are a little muddled and the central conflict feels rushed both in its inception and its conclusion, but this one made me think, for sure. 3.5 stars.
The synopsis of Yankee Tavern suggests that this is a show about the conspiracy theories that sprung up in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks, and while it certainly is, it’s also about the broader ideas of truth, fact, and belief. How (and maybe a little bit why) we look so hard for reasons not to believe what’s plainly in front of our eyes.
But as I type that previous sentence, I’m not sure to what I am referring: the accepted narratives, or the “coincidences” and cast-aside information that conspiracy theorists use to counter those narratives. I’ve always bought into the narratives...but are the coincidences really so coincidental? I both love and hate that this play is making me think about how we come to accept what is true as the Truth-with-a-capital-T. That said, I’m not about to turn full Tinfoil Hat, but like...what if we’re wrong? Steven Dietz’s play is nothing if not thought-provoking.
Concept aside, the characters are a little muddled and the central conflict feels rushed both in its inception and its conclusion, but this one made me think, for sure. 3.5 stars.
October 28, 2018
Wonderful thought provoking play.
October 10, 2015
What’s really on Steven Dietz’s mind is the 9/11 tragedy. Ray, a barfly who spends an inordinate amount of time in this tavern, incessantly listens to talk radio. He even wears a headset lest he miss a morsel.
That apparatus also gives Ray the opportunity to call the program at a moment’s notice. He constantly feels the need to “correct” both the talk show host and other listeners who call in.
Ray is the loosest of cannons as he dispenses his version of the truth. He has opinions on everything, including this howler: “The fall of communism was a Communist plot!”
And yet … and yet … only the rarest of readers won’t feel that every now and then, Ray has a plausible theory or a believable take. That’s the main fascination with “Yankee Tavern.” Who knows for sure what’s true and what isn’t? Can we trust what the politicians tell us?
Adam owns the bar. He’s more concerned about the chance the city will condemn it than with the big wedding his fiancée, Janet, is planning.
These two get the play off to a shaky start. Janet grills Adam as to why so many of the “save-the-date” cards she mailed were returned; he admits that he made up the names just to seem as if he has more friends. While this establishes Adam as an unstable character — one who may be inclined to fudge the truth as much as some government leaders — Janet gets over this lie much too easily.
Another complication comes courtesy of an ominous-looking stranger who enters, sits at the bar, and orders two beers. This unnamed person doesn’t have much to say for the entire first act, but he certainly becomes loquacious in Act Two — with more information about 9/11 than even Ray could imagine.
One of the more arresting moments arrives as the lights come up on Act Two, Scene Two. The bar is covered with baskets of flowers. Were they sent to celebrate Adam and Janet’s wedding — or out of respect for someone who died?
“Yankee Tavern” always keeps the audience guessing.
That apparatus also gives Ray the opportunity to call the program at a moment’s notice. He constantly feels the need to “correct” both the talk show host and other listeners who call in.
Ray is the loosest of cannons as he dispenses his version of the truth. He has opinions on everything, including this howler: “The fall of communism was a Communist plot!”
And yet … and yet … only the rarest of readers won’t feel that every now and then, Ray has a plausible theory or a believable take. That’s the main fascination with “Yankee Tavern.” Who knows for sure what’s true and what isn’t? Can we trust what the politicians tell us?
Adam owns the bar. He’s more concerned about the chance the city will condemn it than with the big wedding his fiancée, Janet, is planning.
These two get the play off to a shaky start. Janet grills Adam as to why so many of the “save-the-date” cards she mailed were returned; he admits that he made up the names just to seem as if he has more friends. While this establishes Adam as an unstable character — one who may be inclined to fudge the truth as much as some government leaders — Janet gets over this lie much too easily.
Another complication comes courtesy of an ominous-looking stranger who enters, sits at the bar, and orders two beers. This unnamed person doesn’t have much to say for the entire first act, but he certainly becomes loquacious in Act Two — with more information about 9/11 than even Ray could imagine.
One of the more arresting moments arrives as the lights come up on Act Two, Scene Two. The bar is covered with baskets of flowers. Were they sent to celebrate Adam and Janet’s wedding — or out of respect for someone who died?
“Yankee Tavern” always keeps the audience guessing.
January 6, 2016
This is a good yarn driven by conspiracy theories but I don't think the playwright knows what the big idea is supporting the plot. It rests on a cliff-hanger that seems to indicate government conspiracies surrounding 9-11 and the Bush Doctrine are real. That is bad on two fronts. One, it is a cliché of the progressive left that populate the theater business to judge the Bush administration as conspiratorial and two, Dietz hints at a much more enthralling idea about conspiracies and the human experience - that we invent conspiracies because our minds can't process the grief that comes with the randomness of life and death. I wish the playwright would have allowed himself to reach for the universal human truth about grief instead of the tidy and plotted suppositions (that border on endorsement) of conspiracy theories.
June 29, 2014
Now this is a hell a play. The reader doesn't even realize he is being lured in, as Dietz's mediation on the seductiveness of conspiracy theories becomes a nerve- jangling conspiracy theory itself.
March 13, 2015
A chilling examination of conspiracy theories, particularly regarding 9/11 ... Dietz is one of my favorite contemporary playwrights (I directed a production of his 'Painting it Red'), and it's good to see he's 'still got it'!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews