About The Book

Christopher Durang has been called “Jonathan Swift’s nicer, younger brother” (The New York Observer). His plays are known for containing hilarity at every turn and revealing social commentary in every corner. Now collected in Why Torture Is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them and Other Political Plays are Durang’s most revealing political and social satires.

Why Torture Is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them tells the story of a young woman in crisis: Is her new husband, whom she married when drunk, a terrorist? Or just crazy? Or both? Is her father’s hobby of butterfly collecting really a cover for his involvement in a shadow government? Does her mother go to the theater frequently to seek mental escape, or is she just insane? Add in a minister who directs porno, and a ladylike operative whose underwear just won’t stay up, and this black comedy will make us laugh all the way to the waterboarding room.

Praise

“Durang’s funniest play! . . . hilarious new comedy.” —Ben Brantley, The New York Times

“Happy news from Christopher Durang . . . his funniest play in years. a play that equals his early hits. Torture is the story, in part, of a family dysfunctional in a new, highly original way. ****” —John Simon, Bloomberg.com

“Christopher Durang, our Poet Laureate of the Absurd, has written a smashing new play. . . . [The treasured playwright possesses a serious philosophy of life combined with a serious taste for the blissfully, unapologetically silly. . . . Durang is Jonathan Swift’s nicer, younger brother.] . . . this freewheeling satire of the cult of violence in a mad, mad world is a cathartic riot” —John Heilpern, The New York Observer

“Comedic napalm, something like a cross between The Marriage of Bette and Boo and Dr. Strangelove. Durang has now joined ranks with Dario Fo. Durang is getting a lot off his chest, and off ours . . . unnervingly true and cathartic.” —Bob Verini, Variety