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A new play by A. R. Gurney now in previews at 59 E 59 offers a wonderful window into conservative Buffalo shortly after World War II. Gurney channels his alternately rebellious and conformist views in Indian Blood through the two teenage characters, Eddie (Charles Socarides) and Lambert (Jeremy Blackman). The play begins with Eddie's narration, and quickly segues into his suspension from school for drawing a naughty picture. Eddie constantly declaims his Seneca blood as a cause for his hotheadedness, especially vis-a-vis his cousin Lambert, a goody two shoes.
With so many parlor scenes, you might think of a comedy of manners, but you may also be reminded of the film Buffalo '66 for its discussion of the initial decay of that vast wilderness known to us as Upstate. For entwined with this coming of age story is the loss of industrial power that causes Buffalo to become eclipsed from the 6th-largest to 13th-largest city in America. John McMartin as Eddie's grandfather utters several eloquent perorations—through his lens as president of a powerful local bank—about the city's decline and lack of various ethnic groups to miscegenate. Eddie's conservative father (Matthew Arkin) powerfully delivers endless commentaries on family life and one's proper place in society, the sort of hoary admonitions that infuriate every young teen, occasionally tempered by his mother's more liberal attitudes.
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59e59, buffalo, gurney, indian blood
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Posted on 7/30/2006
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