Maple and Vine & Other Plays - by Jordan Harrison (Paperback)

About the Book

A new collection of plays by the award-winning author of Marjorie Prime.

Book Synopsis

A new collection of plays by the award-winning author of Marjorie Prime.

Review Quotes

"Jordan Harrison has one of the most extraordinary minds writing for theater today. Reading his plays, I find myself enthralled and entrapped by a mythic nostalgia for a simpler world that escapes the noise and estrangement of the twenty-first century, only to discover that no such place exists beyond our desire for it that Harrison has enticed. Whatever planet Jordan Harrison stages, we are astonished, entertained, and changed by his theatricality and the rich empathy he wields."

-Paula Vogel

"Harrison creates worlds none of us has seen before. Formally inventive, theatrically whiz-banging, linguistically complex, each of his very different original play-worlds dazzle, delight, and confront. Like a Rube Goldberg machine of the mind, each play is a complete world unto itself, making us ask questions about what it means to be a human being in our own time and place. From medieval amateur actors fleeing the Black Death (which could hardly be more relevant), to contemporary New Yorkers fleeing to a 1950s gated community, Harrison charts his course with a brilliant and sure hand."

--Sarah Ruhl

"Jordan Harrison's plays are theatrical funhouses. You never know what he's got in store for you around the next corner. It could be a surprising idea or a big laugh or an emotional sting. With each play, Harrison forges new forms that deliver brain-tickling stories that are also deeply moving."

--Lucas Hnath

Praise for Maple and Vine

"Mr. Harrison's clever fantasy teases out the reality of moving back to the past more completely, making a sneaky, compelling case for the seductions of living the Ozzie and Harriet life full time, as opposed to just dipping into it via the DVR...Piquantly funny, cleverly executed, and darkly playful."

--New York Times

"Funny and trenchant...A wickedly satiric and sympathetic portrait of twenty-first-century angst and the desire to escape into the past."

--Backstage

Praise for Doris to Darlene

"Doris to Darlene is that rare thing: a rarefied theatrical experiment that has the glow of pure entertainment and the warmth of a folktale...Harrison's teasing, rapturous chamber opera of a play spins and crackles like a beloved old 78 under a bamboo needle."

--Newsday

Praise for Amazons and Their Men

"The life of Leni Riefenstahl, the filmmaker who made movies for Hitler, has been examined and critiqued aplenty, but rarely so entertainingly as in Amazons and Their Men, a brash play by Jordan Harrison."

--New York Times

"Amazons and Their Men is chillingly affecting--and surely unforgettable."

--Washington Post

Praise for The Amateurs

"The Amateurs ponders existential concerns, but it's also a valentine to the limits, and compensating alchemy, of theater."

--Washington Post

"A beautiful piece of writing...Should we be allowed to leave a theater these days feeling hope? We're literally witnessing the modern playwright's struggle, and as shared with us by Harrison and company, it's an inspiring thing: playful, doubtful, a little painful, a little magical, and very human."

--Vulture

About the Author

Jordan Harrison grew up on Bainbridge Island, near Seattle. His plays include Maple and Vine, The Grown-Up, Doris to Darlene, Amazons and Their Men, Finn in the Underworld, Act a Lady, Kid-Simple and Futura. Harrison is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Hodder Fellowship, the Kesselring Prize, and the Horton Foote Prize, among other awards. He was a 2015 Pulitzer Prize finalist for Marjorie Prime. A graduate of the Brown MFA program, Harrison is a writer-producer for the Netflix original series Orange Is the New Black.