Kirby Congdon | God is Dead | Gazelle Books

God is Dead (Again) : One Act Plays

Author: Kirby Congdon | ISBN: 0977252426 : 9780977252428 | Format: Paperback | Size: 140x215mm | Pages: 120 | Weight: .144 Kg. | Published: Presa Press – April 2006 | Availability: In Print | Subjects: Drama texts: from c1900-

Twelve one-act plays about the meaning of life.

With crisp, precise dialogue, insightful characterisation and streamlined plot development, Congdon compels us to question our collective fears, fantasies and foibles. Throughout these philosophical voyages, the theme returns to the nature and meaning of human experience. Individually and collectively, they provoke us to examine deeper issues.

Roseanne Ritzema, writes of poet, playwright, Kirby Congdon:

“Kirby’s talent is evident in his skill as a playwright, as it has been for the past 40 years as an avant-garde poet. These plays will visually capture audience attention… they provoke us to examine our existence and question deeper, perhaps even spiritual issues.” And this Congdon does. In his work I see Sartre, Beckett and Pinter. These plays, in a crisp and straightforward fashion probe the ontological questions and existential meaning of life. In “Here I Am,” five characters in a surreal library in the sky (I presume), presided over by an annoyingly obsequious Mrs. Muse, are brought together. The other characters are a rather loathsome lot, composed of poets and other humans we all have encountered. Here is a painful argument between Poets No. 1, a posturing “poet of the people,” vs. Poet No. 3 an effete and preening “establishment” poet: Poet No. 3: I am spending my own good time with my lawyers in setting up a foundation for improvident people, artist very much like yourself even, who need financial assistance.

Poet No. 1: I don’t want no assistance. Buy my fucking book. Read my poems. I know your foundations and your institutions. I am not a poet to them boys. I’m a statistic. Well, I don’t want your conscience money and your doles and handouts. I’m a man, not a tax deduction.

Other poets get in the fray, fighting like rats over a small piece of cheese. Congdon presents a very humorous play that deals with some dead serious issues. In “Dialogue With God,” Congdon uses the conceit of an argument with the great white father himself, with a rather cowed supplicant. The dialogue brings out the hypocrisy of the man-made notions of “God.” Here is a brutally insistent God badgering his “creation” to declare his love:

“Who is this person you say you love?!”

You!

“Tell me all about it.?”

I love you.

“Who most. Who Most?”

Only you.

“Only me?”

Only you……..

Okay boys,

Kill him…”

This book is testament to the fact that Congdon should be as well- known as a playwright as he is as a poet. — Doug Holder/Ibbetson Update

“Kirby Congdon’s poems are a hybrid mix of existential angst & neo-classical tonality. They pose metaphysical & moral questions in ironic spaces, like Mozart played uptempo by a cool jazz combo.” – Eric Greinke

“A poet like Congdon is a man who binds himself to the mast and sails off determined to miss nothing, record everything, even the siren song that leads everyone finally to the reefs of extinguishment.” –Joan Colby, Small Press Review

“Kirby has not been in the mainstream of his time, but he has been very much a part of the avant garde and a creative but independent force as a poet, editor and critic. He deserves and will some day get, the attention that he merits.” – Ray C. Longtin, Professor Emeritus of English, Long Island University

“He (Congdon) is enough of a story painter to invoke Dunsany in his prose pieces and enough of a musician that, no matter where you find yourself in his work, you can hang like a happy spider of a webwork of wordplay and internal rhyme and rhythm.” – Rattlesnake Review

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