Landscape of the Body

Landscape Of The Body is a two-act play by John Guare, first performed in 1977.

The play is episodic and non-linear, as it travels back and forth in time. The plot centers on a woman named Betty, whose son, Bert, was recently murdered and decapitated in lower Manhattan. The location of the first and last scenes are the same. They take place on a boat, with Betty, who throws bottles filled with notes overboard, and an absurdly disguised Detective Holahan. Initially, Holahan accuses Betty of killing her son, but Betty insists this is not true. The audience later finds out, indeed, this is not true, as it is revealed that Bert's friend, Donny, killed him. Betty, whose past is dramatized in chunks, came to New York from Bangor, Maine, after having been sent to fetch her sister Rosalie, who has been acting in porn films. Incidentally, Rosalie gets hit by a bicycle and dies, so Betty takes Rosalie's place in life: she takes her job as both a worker for a Honeymoon Agency and a porn actress, dates Rosalie's Cuban boyfriend Raulito, and lives in New York with Bert. Bert, with his group of friends (Donny, Margie and Joanne) become hoodlums to some extent, as he and Donny lure men into their house and hit them over the head with a wrench so they can steal their watches. A childhood friend, Durwood Peach, confronts Betty after years of non-communication, claiming that his doctor said it would be best for him to propose to Betty, being that she has been the true love of his life his whole life. She goes with him down south, just to find that Durwood's parents just needed Durwood to return, and that she is not wanted. She goes back up to New York to find that Bert and Raulito both have been killed (the latter killed as a result of an inadvertent bank-robbery prank pulled by Bert). The audience finds that the whole play is the previous happenings of the first scene of the play.

Landscape Of The Body was first produced by William Gardner at the Academy Festival Theatre, in Lake Forest, Illinois, in July 1977. It was directed by John Pasquin, with the cast that featured Shirley Knight starred as Betty, F. Murray Abraham as Holahan, Paul McCrane as Bert, Rex Robbins as Durwood Peach, Jay O. Sanders as the Bike Messenger/Dope King/Bank Teller, Bonnie Deroski as Margie, Alexa Kenin as Joanne, Anthony Marciona as Donny, Richard Bauer as Raulito, and Peg Murray as Rosalie. The play ran three hours with intermission.

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