A. R. Gurney | |
|---|---|
| Born | Albert Ramsdell Gurney Jr. (1930-11-01)November 1, 1930 Buffalo, New York, U.S. |
| Died | June 13, 2017(2017-06-13) (aged 86) Manhattan, New York City, U.S. |
| Occupation | |
| Education | Williams College(BA) Yale University(MFA) |
| Genre | Theatre |
| Notable works | |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 4 |
Albert Ramsdell Gurney Jr. (November 1, 1930 – June 13, 2017) (sometimes credited asPete Gurney) was an Americanplaywright,novelist and academic.[1][2][3]
Gurney is known for plays includingThe Dining Room (1982),Sweet Sue (1986/7),The Cocktail Hour (1988), and for hisPulitzer Prize nominated playLove Letters (1988). His series of plays about upper-classWASP life in contemporary America have been called "penetratingly witty studies of the WASP ascendancy in retreat."[4]
Gurney was born on November 1, 1930, inBuffalo, New York, to Albert Ramsdell Gurney Sr. (1896–1977), who was president of Gurney, Becker and Bourne, an insurance and real estate company in Buffalo,[5] and Marion Spaulding (1908-2001).[6][7] His parents had three children, of which Gurney was the middle: (1) Evelyn Gurney Miller (b. 1929),[7][8] (2) Albert Ramsdell Gurney Jr. (b. 1930), and (3) Stephen S. Gurney (b. 1933).[9]
His maternal grandparents were Elbridge G. Spaulding (1881–1974) and Marion Caryl Ely (1887–1971). Ely was the daughter ofWilliam Caryl Ely (1856–1921), politician and lawyer, Member of theNew York State Assembly in 1883.[10] Gurney's 2x great-grandfather wasElbridge G. Spaulding (1809–1897), a formerMayor of Buffalo,NY State Treasurer, and member of theU.S. House of Representatives who supported the idea for the first U.S. currency not backed by gold or silver, thus credited with helping to keep the Union economy afloat during theCivil War.[11]
Gurney attended the private schoolNichols School in Buffalo and graduating fromSt. Paul's School inConcord, New Hampshire. He attendedWilliams College, graduating in 1952, and theYale School of Drama, graduating in 1958,[6] after which he began teachingHumanities atMIT.[1][12]
In 1959, following graduation from Yale, Gurney taught English and Latin at a day school,Belmont Hill School, inBelmont, Massachusetts, for one year. He then joinedMassachusetts Institute of Technology as a professor of humanities (1960–96) and professor of literature (1970–96).[6]
He began writing plays such asChildren andThe Middle Ages while at MIT, but it was his great success withThe Dining Room that allowed him to write full-time. AfterThe Dining Room, Gurney wrote a number of plays, most of them concerningWASPs of the American northeast. While at Yale, Gurney also wroteLove in Buffalo, the first musical ever produced at the Yale School of Drama.[13] Since then, he is known to be a prolific writer.[14]
His first play in New York, which ran for just one performance in October 1968,The David Show, premiered at thePlayers' Theater onMacDougal Street. The play was cut after its first show by sneers from the entire press except for two enthusiasts,Edith Oliver inThe New Yorker and another from theVillage Voice.[15]
His 2015 play,Love and Money, is about a mature woman making plans to dispose of her fortune, and the twists that ensue. The world premiere was at New York's Signature Theatre in August 2015.[16] Before that,The Grand Manner, a play about his real life encounter with famed actressKatharine Cornell in her production ofShakespeare'sAntony and Cleopatra, was produced and performed byLincoln Center for the summer of 2010. It was also produced in Buffalo by the Kavinoky Theatre.[17] He appeared in several of his plays includingThe Dining Room and most notablyLove Letters.[citation needed]
In June, 1957, Gurney married Molly Goodyear, a granddaughter ofAnson Goodyear. They lived in Boston until 1983, when they moved their family toNew York to be near the theater, television, and publishers while he was on sabbatical from MIT.[18] Together, they had four children:[19]
Gurney's father, Albert Ramsdell Gurney Sr., died in 1977 and Molly's mother, Sarah Norton, died in 1978. After their deaths, his mother, Marion, married Molly's father, George, and remained married until Marion's death in 2001,[7] followed by George's death in 2002.[15][18]
Gurney died at his home inManhattan, on June 13, 2017, at the age of 86.[23]
In 2006, Gurney was elected a member of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Letters.[24]
In 2007, Gurney received thePEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award as a master American dramatist.
Gurney was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2016Obie Awards presented by theAmerican Theatre Wing andThe Village Voice.[25]
Gurney's plays often explore the theme of declining upper-class "WASP" (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) life in contemporary America.The Wall Street Journal has called his works "penetratingly witty studies of the WASP ascendancy in retreat."[4] Several of his works are loosely based on his patrician upbringing, includingThe Cocktail Hour andIndian Blood.[15]The New York Times drama critic Frank Rich, in his review ofThe Dining Room, wrote, "As a chronicler of contemporary America's most unfashionable social stratum—upper-middle-class WASPs, this playwright has no current theatrical peer."[26]
In his 1988 play, "The Cocktail Hour", the lead character tells her playwright son that theater critics "don't like us.... They resent us. They think we're all Republicans, all superficial and all alcoholics. Only the latter [sic] is true."[4]The New York Times described the play as witty observations about a nearly extinct patrician class that regards psychiatry as an affront to good manners, underpaid hired help as a birthright.[27]
In a 1989 interview withThe New York Times, Gurney said, "Just as it's mentioned inThe Cocktail Hour,' my great-grandfather hung up his clothes one day and walked into theNiagara River and no one understood why." Gurney added that "he was a distinguished man in Buffalo. My father could never mention it, and it affected the family well into the fourth generation as a dark and unexplainable gesture. It made my father and his father desperate to be accepted, to be conventional, and comfortable. It made them commit themselves to an ostensibly easy bourgeois world. They saw it so precariously, but the reason was never mentioned. I first learned about it after my father died."[5]
Gurney toldThe Washington Post in 1982:
WASPs do have a culture—traditions, idiosyncrasies, quirks, particular signals and totems we pass on to one another. But the WASP culture, or at least that aspect of the culture I talk about, is enough in the past so that we can now look at it with some objectivity, smile at it, and even appreciate some of its values. There was a closeness of family, a commitment to duty, to stoic responsibility, which I think we have to say weren't entirely bad."[28]
Gurney has also written several novels, including:[6]
Mary Forman Goodyear.
