Darien Library is the Venue for One-Act Plays

On Sunday October 17, The Darien library hosted 2 one-act plays by two noted American playwrights.

The first play The Golden Fleece written by A.R. Gurney is based upon the Story of Jason and Medea. In the play, a modern day couple face the audience and claim to be in contact with both Jason and Medea--both of whom insist they have encountered offstage. The actors Bill (played by Raymond G. Michaud) and Betty (Holly Hylton) are convincing in their roles.

Wendy Wasserstein wrote the second play, Waiting for Phillip Glass. An East Hampton socialite holds a party for an artist. When Glass does not show up, the other guests are forced to interact with eachother and examine their own lives.

Director Donna M. Wyant writes that "Wasserstein borrows insight from Shakespeare to underscore similarites between the social dysfunction within Elizabethan sociey and that of the social climbing culture of wealthy Long Island Hamptonites, in the late 1990s."

"The playwright builds her argument around Shakespeares's Sonnet 94, by turning to the metaphor of the flower; 'Lillies that fester smell far worse than weeds.' It fits the party's crowd, wherein the characters want what they can't have, don't want what they have , or want someone who wants someone else."

The action is swift and the acting is precise and sharp.