Tony-winning playwright infused work with absurdism
Playwright Christopher Durang, a master of satire and black comedy who won a Tony Award for “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist with “Miss Witherspoon,” has died. He was 75.
Durang died Tuesday at his home in Pipersville, Penn., of complications from logopenic primary progressive aphasia, said his agent, Patrick Herold. In 2022, it was revealed Durang had been diagnosed in 2016 with the disorder, a rare form of Alzheimer’s disease.
Durang’s plays were infused with a smart, high-octane sense of absurdism. His works include “Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You,” “Baby with the Bathwater,” “The Marriage of Bette and Boo,” “Betty’s Summer Vacation” and “Mrs. Bob Cratchit’s Wild Christmas Binge.”
The playwright had arguably his brightest career moment with “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike,” a sweet and witty play inspired by Anton Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya” and “Three Sisters,” which made it to Broadway starring David Hyde Pierce, Sigourney Weaver and Kristine Nielsen.
It centres on three middle-aged siblings named after Chekhov characters who are uneasily negotiating with age. Two of them — Vanya and Sonia — have been sitting around their Pennsylvania home and bickering for years ever since their parents died. The sibling who escaped, Masha, has become an insufferable movie star and has returned to sell the house, leaving her sister and brother with the prospect of being homeless and penniless.
Durang flung all kinds of references into his word processor: Angelina Jolie, Snow White, Maggie Smith, global warming, Norma Desmond, William Penn, “Peter Pan,” the HBO show “Entourage,” Lindsay Lohan, ancient Greek drama, voodoo and, of course, Chekhov.
In his Tony acceptance speech, Durang noted that he wrote his first play in second grade in 1958. “It’s been a long road, but I’m very happy to be here,” he said.
He was nominated for a Tony for best book of a musical in 1978 for “A History of the American Film” — about Hollywood’s Golden Age — and named a Pulitzer finalist in 2006 for “Miss Witherspoon,” about a woman who wishes to die but is continually reincarnated on Earth.
Durang’s other Broadway credits include “All About Me” in 2010 and “Sex and Longing” in 1996. He also wrote screenplays for such films as “The Adventures of Lola” and “The Nun Who Shot Liberty Valance.” He was a staff writer for “Carol and Robin and Whoopi and Carl” in 1985.
He was also an actor, with his first speaking role being a putupon executive in Herbert Ross’s “The Secret of My Success” starring Michael J. Fox. Durang was a regular on a 2001 sitcom called “Kristin,” starring Kristin Chenoweth. He also acted opposite Debra Monk in 2005 in a revival of “Laughing Wild” at The Huntington Theater in Boston.