A.R. Gurney on 'The Perfect Party'

This one is based on the rather wacky notion that a man would plan and give what he hopes will be a perfect party, and be deluded enough to invite a New York Times critic to review it. It is obviously, perhaps like too many of my other works, a play about the theatre. It has some good twists and some good laughs, and at its best, might almost evoke one of those Moliere plays where an obsessed protagonist gets caught up in an exaggerated and ludicrous passion.

I can’t say this is the most profound play ever written, but it certainly was fun to write and fun to stage with my director friend, John Tillinger For a while, too it was fun for audiences. The cast - John Cunningham, Debra Mooney. Kate McGregor-Stewart, Charlotte Moore, and David Margolies - were all first-rate and extremely funny. To watch Charlotte Moore as the Times critic consume an entire plate of hors d’oeuvres as she delivered a long speech saying why she was refusing to review the party it was hilarious, at least to me.

 The play went on to the Kennedy Center with George Grizzard and Elizabeth Ashley, and toured the summer circuit as well, and had a run in at the Greenwich Theatre in London. It is still done occasionally in community theatres. In the end, its success depends on how much we buy into the hero’s desperate desire to entertain and please the critics. This, of course, was my own futile obsession at that time in my life, and I hope I’m beginning to get over it.