

Plays Four
Caryl Churchill
From the author's website On a lonely 4th of July in Hartford, four isolated individuals search for connection.
“The usual race and class equations have been upended.
Nothing is emotionally simple.
The play keeps delivering small shocks and aches that end in a standoff, or maybe in that pause between despair, resignation, and a twinge of hope.
Haunting.”
– Margo Jefferson, New York Times “Shinn’s landscape of desire is bleak but profoundly familiar.
Four eloquently captures the things people don’t say on their way to not getting the love they want.”
– Don Shewey, The Advocate “Four opens with the image of a heartbreakingly jangled teenager trying to get up the nerve to keep a date.
For the next 90 minutes, Shinn renders in fine detail an awkward world of youthful self- consciousness, desire and seemingly insurmountable emotional confusion.”
– Nelson Pressley, Washington Post world premiere: Royal Court Theatre, 1998
"Smart, broken-hearted… Mr. Shinn has a precocious and forgiving sense of how power shifts in the game of sexual pursuit… He promises to be a playwright to reckon with."
— The New York Times
"A voice emerges from an American place. It’s got humor, sadness and a fresh and touching rhythm that tell of the loneliness and secrets of life… [a] poetic, haunting play."
— New York Post
Four is a American play written by Christopher Shinn and published by Dramatists Play Service (2002).
No community reviews yet
Restrictions: Major Markets Plus (US) / Standard Plus Add'l Postcodes (UK)
Apply for RightsPlays with similar themes, style, and content.
More plays from Christopher Shinn that we think you'll enjoy.