Water by the Spoonful wins the 2012 Pulitzer for Drama- Page 2

[AC126748]

Water by the Spoonful wins the 2012 Pulitzer for Drama#25

Posted: 4/17/12 at 1:06pm

PJ--yes, in 1935.

The award doesn't make these plays "the best" or even "better than" bushels full of other work. That's the mistake most people make about any award - assuming that a random award automatically makes a work superlative.

I don't think anyone is automatically assuming that WATER BY THE SPOONFUL is suddenly the best new play out there. But receiving any high profile award does raise the visibility of a work, opens it up to an entirely new group of people who possibly might not have encountered it, and creates an interest. These are not bad things. It's totally fair to assume that the play will likely receive a New York production, be published, etc.

And the Pulitzer is a name that carries weight, whether you agree or not. That doesn't automatically make them infallible, but it's true.

"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe." -John Guare, Landscape of the Body

Updated On: 4/17/12 at 01:06 PM

[newintown]

Water by the Spoonful wins the 2012 Pulitzer for Drama#26

Posted: 4/17/12 at 1:25pm

Sure, but the point is this: the Pulitzer name only carries weight to people who believe it carries weight. It doesn't carry weight because of inherent value.

[Mister Matt]

Water by the Spoonful wins the 2012 Pulitzer for Drama#27

Posted: 4/17/12 at 1:47pm

Well, that's true of any award, review, or any other form of acknowledgment or recognition.

"What can you expect from a bunch of seitan worshippers?" - Reginald Tresilian

[Kad]

Water by the Spoonful wins the 2012 Pulitzer for Drama#28

Posted: 4/17/12 at 1:49pm

And a lot of people think the Pulitzer carries weight, so...

"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."

[newintown]

Water by the Spoonful wins the 2012 Pulitzer for Drama#29

Posted: 4/17/12 at 1:55pm

I'd be interested in hearing the end of that sentence.