THE STORY: Amid the gin and tonics, vichyssoise, and tennis doubles of Buffalo’s summer scene, siblings Nick and Peggy must confront their mother’s possible infidelity, their father’s apparent indifference, and their own increasingly complicated love lives. FAMILY FURNITURE is a coming-of-age-tale of one certain summer when everything shifts.
“FAMILY FURNITURE is a period piece set in the early 1950s, a time of luncheon clubs, Studebakers and casual bigotry, but there is nothing dated about the emotions portrayed therein, and nothing in any way rusty about the self-assured craftsmanship with which Mr. Gurney puts them onstage. He is an American master, one of the best playwrights that we have, and in FAMILY FURNITURE he shows us that his mastery, against all odds, is continuing to deepen…Plays like FAMILY FURNITURE used to open on Broadway. This one belongs there.” —Wall Street Journal.
“…a tender, sepia-toned play about a traumatic passage in the lives of a tight-knit, well-bred clan…[Gurney] expresses a graceful respect for all his characters, who are drawn with his customary gentle humor and sympathy.” —The New York Times.
“It’s an old-fashioned, 1950s-set gin-on-the-rocks drama, and it’s a pure delight.” —Entertainment Weekly.
“This is a Darwinian lesson for the modern, civilized world, in which keeping up appearances is a more useful survival mechanism than honesty…It’s this unseen churning under a placid surface that gives this subtle play its tension.” —TheaterMania.
