Alex Finlayson

Infobox Writer
name = Alex Finlayson
birthdate = birth date|1951|12|4|mf=y
birthplace = Tyler, Texas
occupation = Playwright

Alex Finlayson is an American playwright whose sly irreverant plays have found more success on the English stage than in the U.S. After winning a Mobil Oil International Playwriting Prize, Winding the Ball -- a dark comedy about a sniper shooting up the small town where he is also the popular high school football coach -- was produced by The Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, which also commissioned and produced Finlayson's Misfits (1996) and Tobaccoland (1999). All three plays starred American stage and film actress Lisa Eichhorn and were directed by Greg Hersov.

According to Hersov, Finlayson creates

"vivid and authentic worlds underpinned by a fiercely personal moral vision. She deals with the most private sides of our lives but sees them in terms of the history and culture of her country." (Hersov 1996:7)

Reviewing Tobaccoland, the tragedy of a North Carolina tobacco farmer who refuses to face the end of his family's way of life, Stephen Gallagher says that Finlayson

“fuses the epic and the intimate to deliver a play that should propel her into that category of American dramatists once dominated by Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams.” (Gallagher 1999:18).

Winding the Ball was praised for being "gripping, luridly funny" (Peter 1989) and

"splendidly assured, with wit and perception that bespeak a major talent. Even [its] symbolism-- that Achilles heel of much American drama- packs a powerful punch" (Hoyle 1989).

Finlayson's most controversial play may be the documentary drama Misfits, which chronicles the making of The Misfits (film) (1961) and portrays its historic box office and artistic failure as the fault of its creators, writer Arthur Miller, director John Huston, and producer Frank Taylor, and not its star, Marilyn Monroe, who is most often blamed for The Misfits (film) disaster. Produced by The Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, Misfits received mixed reviews, with some critics attacking Finlayson for even daring to put Miller onstage as a character. However The Times proclaimed the play "riveting," "fascinating," "witty," and "inventive" (Kingston 1996). Perhaps not surprisingly, given Miller's stature, U.S. theaters steered clear of Misfits. But in a dramatic twist worthy of the stage, Arthur Miller may have had the final word. His last play, Finishing the Picture (Goodman Theatre, Chicago 2004), presented his version of Marilyn Monroe and the making of The Misfits (film) eleven years after Finlayson’s Misfits debuted.

A native Texan and the daughter of Jim Finlayson, a Clio Award-winning commercial actor and East Texas raconteur (see C.W. McCall), Alex Finlayson was educated on the east coast, receiving degrees from Wellesley College and the University of Virginia. After a brief career as a New York advertising copywriter for Ogilvy & Mather, she taught herself to write plays by moving to a remote cabin in the Appalachian Mountains and studying the work of George Bernard Shaw, Anton Chekhov, Harold Pinter, Sam Shepard, and Caryl Churchill. Her first play, Ladies' Side, was produced by the Source Theatre, Washington D.C. and received a Helen Hayes Award nomination for Best New Play of the Year. Her play, World of Beauty, won the 1988 Texas Playwrights Festival at Stages Repertory Theatre, Houston.

Plays Include:
*Trudi (2007)
*Why Men Hate Women (2006)
*The Outcry (2005)
*Tobaccoland(1999)
*The Bad Doctor (1998)
*Misfits (1996)
*Love and Adultery (1994)
*Winding The Ball (1989)
*World of Beauty (1988)
*Last Piece of Flat Land
*Ladies'Side

References

*Finlayson, Alex. Plays by Alex Finlayson (forward by Greg Hersov). London: Oberon Books, 1998. ISBN 1870259696
*Finlayson, Alex. Tobaccoland. London: Oberon Books, 1999. ISBN 1840020814
*Gallagher, Stephen. "In Manchester", "Plays International", July/August 1999.
*Hoyle, Martin. "A Shot Let Loose on the Town," Financial Times, 28 October 1989.
*Kingston, Jeremy. "A Hit at Long Last," The Times, 13 May 1996.
*Peter, John. The Sunday Times, 5 November 1989.

External links

* [http://www.helenhayes.org/sub/nr.cfm Helen Hayes Award Nomination 1986]
* [http://www.ncarts.org/fellowship/99-2000/afinlayson.html North Carolina Artists Grant Award 1999-2000]
* [http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2008/jun/18/cover/ "No Shushing in This Library," SAN DIEGO READER]