THE STORY: As the Associated Press describes “THE AUTOGRAPH HOUND is…so funny and unphony that an old hand playwright could be proud of it. The play, at the Off-Broadway Jan Hus Theatre, is funny in a comfortable way. It bases its humor on human and domestic foibles. The playwright’s views seem to be that some faults are completely ridiculous and in no way admitting of praise and yet, reassuringly, they spring from an unquenchable human spirit to be celebrated rather than censured. The wife in the three-character play is a full-blown eccentric who stands for hours outside every possible celebrity gathering place to get autographs. One night when she’s out, standing in the snow, her husband tears up the treasured collection housed in three living room filing cabinets, bests her in a strangling contest when she gets home, sends their daughter out to find her own apartment, and declares a turning point. But what way will they turn? She’s the one, after all, with the 'thrill of the chase’ as she expresses it. They find their togetherness—he joins her hobby."
A sharply humorous and inventive play which takes a scratching and revealing look at the obsessive celebrity-chasers who find their meaning in life through collecting autographs.
“…a frequently funny, if slanderous analysis of the types who haunt stagedoors, hotel entrances and Sardi’s doorway in search of celebrities signatures.” —Variety.
“There’s a nice feel of boldness to the writing; a good sense of structures; and a genuinely funny wit to the dialogue.” —Cue Magazine.
Included in the collection
Lemonade and The Autograph Hound.
