Witness (play) explained

Witness
Premiere:	November 21, 1968
Place:	Off-Broadway
Orig Lang:	English
Genre:	one-act play

Witness is a one-act play by Terrence McNally which opened Off-Broadway at the Gramercy Arts Theatre on November 21, 1968,^[1] and closed on January 26, 1969.^[2]

Production

Witness premiered Off-Broadway at the Gramercy Arts Theatre in 1968. It starred James Coco, Sally Kirkland, Richard Marr, and Joe Ponazecki, and was paired with another McNally play, Sweet Eros. The production ran through January 26, 1969.^[3]

Witness is one of McNally's earlier plays and received mixed reviews.^{[4] [5]}

Overview

The play depicts a man who is planning to assassinate the President of the United States from the window of a building, all the while keeping a gagged and bound victim as a witness to his sanity.^[6] One of the play's major themes is loneliness.^[5]

Further reading

• Terrence McNally : 15 short plays, Terrence McNally, Smith and Kraus, Lyme, NH, c1994,

External links

• Witness at the Internet off-Broadway Database

Notes and References

1. Book: Raymond-Jean Frontain. The Theater of Terrence McNally: Something about Grace. 4 October 2019. Rowman & Littlefield. 978-1-68393-216-1. 328–.
2. Book: Burns Mantle. John Arthur Chapman. Garrison P. Sherwood. Burns Mantle Yearbook. 1969. Dodd, Mead. Page.436
3. http://www.lortel.org/lla_archive/index.cfm?search_by=show&id=3638 "'Sweet Eros' Listing"
4. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-feb-10-ca-6534-story.html "OCC Traces McNally from Witness to Dunelawn
5. Zinman, Toby Silverman. Terrence McNally, A Casebook, Edited by Toby Silverman Zinman, Taylor & Francis, 1997, p. 30
6. http://www.4-wall.com/authors/authors_m/mcnally/witness.htm The Guide to World Drama: Witness, by Terrence McNally