Visiting Mr. Green

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Please improve this article if you can. (September 2007)

Visiting Mr. Green is a popular and provocative stage play by Jeff Baron, considered a classic of American Jewish theater.

Contents

[edit] Storyline:

Mr. Green, a crotchety and bitter, 86-year-old Jewish retired dry cleaner and widower survives his loneliness by clinging to religious rules. Ross Gardiner, a successful young gay Jewish corporate executive insulates himself against his isolation by burying his emotions and focusing on his career. Their paths would have been unlikely to cross.

Then Mr. Green is almost hit by a speeding car driven by Ross. Found guilty of reckless driving, Ross is ordered to spend the next six months making weekly visits to Mr. Green.

What starts off as a comedy about two people who resent being in the same room together develops into a gripping and poignant drama, as family secrets are revealed and old wounds are opened.

In Mr. Green's Upper West Side prewar apartment, he lives amid the fading floral wallpaper and the stacks of brown grocery bags, an angry recluse cursing God for taking his wife, Yetta, two months earlier.

Mr Green is a stubborn, tyrannical tightwad who clings to his faith as tenaciously as he holds onto outdated ideas about family and sexuality. He laughs disbelievingly to himself over Ross's ignorance of the kosher household's need for separate plates for dairy and meat dishes; he suddenly warms to Ross after the disclosure that he, too, is Jewish; he flinches coldly at the younger man's touch....

[edit] History

World Premiere starring Eli Wallach at Berkshire Theatre Festival Stockbridge, MA, USA June 20-July 6, 1996. Then through 1997 a year-long run at the Union Square Theatre in New York also with Eli Wallach in the lead role. The play has gone on to have over 300 productions in 37 countries and been translated into 22 languages.

[edit] Awards

  • Drama League (NYC), Best Play nominee;
  • Greek Theatre Awards, Best Play;
  • Moliere Awards (PARIS), Best Play nominee;
  • Turkish Theatre Awards, Best Play;
  • Israeli Theatre Awards, Best Play;[1]
  • Mexico Theatre Awards, Best Play;
  • INTHEGA Prize (Germany), Best Touring Play;[2]
  • A.C.E. (Argentina), Best Foreign Play nominee;
  • Kulturpreis Europa, 2001;[3]
  • Florencio Prize (Uruguay), Best Foreign Play.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Visiting Mr. Green. Cameri Theatre of Tel Aviv. Retrieved on 2007-09-05.
  2. ^ Die INTHEGA-Preise seit 1985 (German). INTHEGA. Retrieved on 2007-09-05. “2002: Schauspiel: 1. "Besuch bei Mr. Green" von Jeff Baron (Theatergastspiele Kempf, Grünwald)”
  3. ^ KPE 2001 nach Wien (German). Retrieved on 2007-09-05. “Das KulturForum Europa e.V. hat beschlossen... für "Besuch bei Mr. Green", (Visiting Mr. Green) mit dem KulturPreis Europa 2001 zu ehren.”