Description: Wallace Shawn's work has been described in such glowing terms as "the most stimulating, not to mention demanding, American play to emerge this year' (Frank Rich of The New York Times on Aunt Don and Lemon), "profoundly engaging and provocative" (New York Newsday on The Fever), and "nasty, hilarious and quite riveting for all the fight reasons" (Time Out, London, on A Thought in Three Parts). Here, four plays are brought together, revealing the mordant social observance and subversive wit of a body of work that has struck terror in the hearts of theatergoers on both sides of the Atlantic. Shawn's themes include sexual convention, historical guilt, and the conflict between high and low culture, all described with a remarkable, attentive language that juxtaposes colloquialisms and slang with poetic incision. Brilliant and biting, his plays are sometimes horrifying, sometimes hilarious, but never, ever dull. They are prizes for any reader ready to be challenged with new, unflinching (and maybe even dangerous) ways of looking at the world.

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