A History of the American Film

A hilarious take off on American films, especially from the 1930s through the 1950s. The principals play a variety of characters. There is a Cagney Bogart Dean Brando type-- and a Fonda Stewart Peck Perkins type

The women, too, are types-- basically Bette Davis, Loretta Young and Eve Arden. The parts they play are wild parodies from many Hollywood genres; a silent tearjerker, slum idyll, gangster epic, courtroom melodrama, chain gang social justice thriller, screwball comedy, Busby Berkeley backstage musical, war propaganda canteen musical-- not to forget "Casablanca," "Citizen Kane" and a variety of minor genres

"The special gifts Durang brings to this work, apart from a sharp eye for genre parody are a sense of the misguided way we watch movies - making stars, ignoring the character in favour of the actor, wallowing in the kitschier moments - and an equally lethal sense of how Hollywood played on our sentimentalities by using the actor and the kitsch forms to put junky ideas across" ~ Village Voice

"Authentic, inspired and possessed comedy ... A very funny carnival" ~ N.Y. Times