Research Catalog

Title

We bombed in New Haven : a play / Joseph Heller.

Author

Heller, Joseph

Publication

• New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 1968.
• ©1967

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Leonard L. Milberg Collection of Jewish American Writers NjP
• Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., publisher.
• Haddon Craftsmen, Inc., printer, binder.

Description

196 p.; 22 cm.

Summary

The play is heavily metatheatrical, being not only staged at but also set at the Ambassador Theatre, the actors playing actors appearing in a play at the Ambassador. This play-within-a-play concerns a strategic bombing squadron; the squadron commander frequently steps out of character to reassure the audience that they are only watching a play. This conceit is carried to the point where the actors themselves exhibit confusion over whether they really are actors playing airmen, or actual airmen. For instance, in the second act, Henderson (played by Ron Leibman) is scheduled to be killed -- he knows this, being familiar with the script, and is not worried; but then later, a corporal is killed on a mission and Henderson is unable to find him offstage. Henderson worries that the corporal really has been killed, and that perhaps the "play" is reality.

Subject

• 1900-1999
• American drama > 20th century
• 18.06 Anglo-American literature
• American drama

Genre/Form

• Metadramas
• Drama
• Drama (texts)
• Metadramas.
• Drama.
• Authors' inscriptions (Provenance)
• Métathéâtre.
• Théâtre.

Note

• "Composed, printed, and bound by The Haddon Craftsmen, Inc., Scranton, Pa. Typography and binding design by Kenneth Miyamoto"--Colophon.

LCCN

68023943

OCLC

• ocm00443211
• 443211
• SCSB-120270

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library