Bringing It All Back Home
Written byTerrence McNally
CharactersSam - father
Mona - mother
Jimmy - son killed in war
Johnny - younger son
Suzy - daughter
Ms. Fatima - TV reporter
television support crew
casket delivery people[1]
Date premiered1969
Place premieredNew Haven
Subjectantiwar
GenreDrama
SettingUnited States, Viet Nam war era

Bringing It All Back Home is a one-act play by Terrence McNally. It is a biting satire of a middle-class family and their reaction to losing a son in Vietnam.[2][3]

Productions

The play was produced in New Haven in 1969[4] and at the Provincetown Playhouse, New York City, 1971.[5]

It was produced by Solid Hang at the Collective Unconscious, New York, in September 2005.[6]

Concept

This play is one of several of McNally's that dealt with the Vietnam and Iraq wars: Botticelli (1968), Witness (1968), and Some Men (2007). Peter Wolfe (professor of English at the University of Missouri-St. Louis) notes that Bringing It All Back Home is an anti-war play, and also examines the family.[7]

Plot

The father of the household makes obscene phone calls while his teen son and daughter fight about the illegal drugs at their high school; the mother blots it all out. Then the body of their son Jimmy, killed in the Vietnam war, arrives. A television station wants to film their reactions. Jimmy arises and wonders why he died.

References

  1. ↑ "Dramatists Play Service, Inc, Terrence McNally", Book/Item: ¡CUBA SI!, BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME, LAST GASPS, ISBN 978-0-8222-0257-8, pp. 27 (Jimmy), 28 (Johnny, Suzy), 31 (Mona), 34 (Sam), 35 (Ms. Horne)
  2. ↑ Dramatists Play Service, Inc, Terrence McNally
  3. ↑ playdatabase.com: Bringing It All Back Home
  4. ↑ Zinman, Toby Silverman."Selected Bibliography" Terrence McNally: A Casebook Routledge, April 8, 2014, ISBN 1135596050, p. 181
  5. ↑ "Biography, Famous Works" filmreference.com, accessed April 29, 2014
  6. ↑ "'Bringing It All Back Home' at the Collective Unconscious" newyorktheatreguide.com, August 29, 2005, accessed March 2, 2016
  7. ↑ Wolfe, Peter. "Chapter Three", The Theater of Terrence McNally: A Critical Study, McFarland, 2013, ISBN 1476612587, p.55

Further reading

  • Terrence McNally : 15 short plays, Terrence McNally, Smith and Kraus, Lyme, NH, c1994, ISBN 1-880399-34-2


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