THE STORY: A father and his teenage daughter stand on either side of a closed door. Life is unraveling for him, and it is entirely uncertain for her. So begins Melissa James Gibson’s poignant, funny play about estrangement and the partially examined life. With her spare style, mordant wit, and compassionate insight, one of the most emotionally penetrating and unique voices in theatre today wonders WHAT RHYMES WITH AMERICA.
“This touching, sorrowful comedy [is]…full of compassionate wonder at the innumerable ways in which lives can go wrong.” —The New York Times.
“Gibson writes fluidly and beautifully for that Impatient Age, slowing down our emotional metabolism for deeper scrutiny while speeding proficiently through her scenes, each a sketchlike contrivance, but none of them sketchy.” —New York Magazine.
“People in Melissa James Gibson’s enchanting, tough-minded, 85-minute play, WHAT RHYMES WITH AMERICA, feel their way around life with an off-balance neediness that is both morose and unexpectedly engaging…[Gibson] makes us identify with people who struggle on the sides of what they see as the center of things.” —Newsday (NY).
“Desperation, poor timing, denial, miscommunication, estrangement, insecurities. All the stuff of comedy—thanks to Melissa James Gibson’s gift of quirky, intellectual writing…There may not be a word that rhymes with America, yet Gibson expertly illuminates the non-rhyming poetry within ordinary people desperate to figure out how to move forward.” —Associated Press.
