This collection includes three full-length plays: TO GILLIAN ON HER 37TH BIRTHDAY, TWO BEARS BLINKING, and KORCZAK'S CHILDREN. TO GILLIAN ON HER 37TH BIRTHDAY: A grieving widower must accept his wife's death to save himself and his relationship with his daughter. TWO BEARS BLINKING: Mysterious lights appearing on canyon wall attract a group of people to a ranch in New Mexico. KORCZAK'S CHILDREN: The story of Janusz Korczak who strove to give the children of the Warsaw Ghetto a sense of normalcy despite the horrific conditions.
TO GILLIAN ON HER 37TH BIRTHDAY:
"...Though TO GILLIAN begins as a simple dramatization of its hero's obsessive mourning, it gradually expands to become a richer form of family drama... [Mr Brady] writes with a rueful sophistication that keeps his story's sentimentality at bay ... TO GILLIAN is peppered with sharp, evenhanded observations about the tenuous ties that connect husbands and wives and parents and children.
...if TO GILLIAN is a play that sends a ghost flying out of [the] heavens, its appeal derives from its author's keen sensitivity to life down here on earth."
Frank Rich, The New York Times
"This first major work by Michael Brady has well-dimensioned characters, solid conflict, piquant writing and gives off a warm, affirmative glow... When it has become not uncommon to encounter plays with no sympathetic characters, audiences will respond affectionately to everyone In GILLIAN. Working on a small canvas, the author is in impressive control of his material..."
Richard Hummler, Variety
TWO BEARS BLINKING:
"A play with a fresh point of view that combines compassion, a sense of humor, and emotional honesty, with complex, articulate characters who merit sympathy and attention." Miami Herald
"A memory play-mysterious and poetic."
Miami Backstage
KORCZAK'S CHILDREN:
"KORCZAK'S CHILDREN draws its drama from the reality of the Warsaw Ghetto-honest, relentless and heartbreaking."
Will Sonzski, Boston College Biweekly
"Within every great tragedy there are small tragedies. And because they are simpler to grasp, the numbers more manageable, small tragedies wring our souls more painfully than the large. KORCZAK'S CHILDREN is a wrenching story dramatically told."
James Brady, Advertising Age
