Serenading Louie - Acting Edition

by Lanford Wilson

A well-known play written by Pulitzer Prize winner Lanford Wilson.

Genres: Plays, Drama

72 pages, Paperback

Published October 1, 1976

About the author

Lanford Wilson was an American playwright, considered one of the founders of the Off-Off-Broadway theater movement. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1980, was elected in 2001 to the Theater Hall of Fame, and in 2004 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Reviews

[Martin Denton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lanford Wilson wrote Serenading Louie in the 1970s. It's a kind of cautionary tale about the Silent Majority (i.e., Wilson's own generation, the folks who came of age in the late '50s/early '60s, a placid era sandwiched between more dramatic defining shared events like World War II and the Counterculture). For these people, the traditional American idea of success--the kind that protagonists of Arthur Miller plays pursue so blindly and recklessly--feels fraudulent; but it's so easy to lapse into.

Alex is a wunderkind lawyer who is about to be drafted to run for a seat in Congress; he's got a romantic streak that makes him infatuated with the anti-war activism of college kids a dozen years younger than himself, but he's also strongly pragmatic. His pal Carl, who was the star of the football team when they went to Northwestern University in Chicago, is now an unstoppably successful (and wealthy) real estate developer. Carl is married to Mary, another friend from college; she's a spoiled daughter of privilege who is now, somewhat inexplicably, having an affair with Carl's accountant. Alex is married to Gabby, who, significantly, did not go to Northwestern; she's in a weird unexplainable funk at the moment, and he's not exactly sure why he's so completely exasperated by everything she does.

Wilson sketches out telling details about these four in fascinating ways in Serenading Louie. The first act feels conventional and even a little turgid as it lays out the basic circumstances of the story. But Act Two keeps pulling us up short. Its first scene fills in informational gaps about the characters in unexpected ways: the relationships we thought we comprehended get turned on their heads as we come to know these four people more deeply. And its final scene, in which the various conflicts arrive at simultaneous denouements, pushes daringly out of conventional narrative structure, turning the play's conclusion into a scary collision of moments that are almost unbearably visceral.

[Natalie · Rating 2 out of 5]

More like 1.5 stars, and that's being generous.

Ughhhhhhh, I had forgotten how bad this play was. My memory of it from several years ago was "a bunch of straight people living boring lives," but it is actually more like "a bunch of straight people living boring lives, also OH DEAR GOD STRAIGHT MEN ARE HORRIFYING AHHHHHHHH WHY IS THIS HAPPENING."

[erocchio · Rating 5 out of 5]

THis play was wonderful to read. Sad story about used to be's who can't function in the present. I loved hearing the song sung that inspired the title on youtube.

[Alex Mayer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good, but definitely not happy. Enjoyed it very much.