The Long Christmas Ride Home

I loved this! When I saw she was using puppets, I mistakenly assumed this play was going to be sweet and precious.WRONG! She really tackles some touch subjects in an original and engaging way. I understand the play was influenced by Thornton Wilder's short play THE LONG CHRISTMAS DINNER, which helps me to appreciate the original from a different perspective.

My girlfriend and I read this in about an hour, and we were both impressed and moved by the clearly autobiographical expressions Paula Vogel shared and excercised. There is wonderful theatricality to be read (and seen if lucky) in the Bunraku-style puppets exemplifying the vision of her seminal anti-warm and fuzzy Christmas ride home with her brother, sister and parents.In many respects this is a heavily therapeutic work, almost something Ms. Vogel had been needing to present. The urgency to share her painful upbringing and the deep wounds that helped carve herself and her siblings proves startling when imagining the three children as puppets, beholden to their parent's traumatic relationship, trapped in cars and apartments, suffering so greatly on a night others are seemingly so happy.In conclusion it cannot be stressed enough how amazing it is to experience an artist's deepest, most painful and most loving visions of their life. It is what all artists strive for. In The Long Christmas Ride Home, Ms. Vogel shared her great love and pain, communicating them to me with pathos and wit.It is to be noted that in the version I read-no the Dramatists Play Service one-there is a collection of letters she received from her brother Carl, which were as interesting and moving as the play itself.