A Play Is A Poem

If the audience laughs it was a comedy. If the audience nods with new understanding it was a drama. If the audience both laughs and nods but can’t say why it’s funny or what they’ve understood, it might be A Play Is a Poem, the new collection of one-acts by celebrated playwright and filmmaker Ethan Coen. The hillbilly hollows of Appalachia, the executive suites of Hollywood, a New York tenement apartment, a magnolia-scented gazebo in Natchez, Mississippi—each holds a different story. Together they make for an eccentric look at life across America as only Ethan Coen (or perhaps Sam Shepard or Mark Twain) could deliver.