History Plays

". . . sheer subversive bravado . . ."

- The New York Times


Here are six enthusiastically received history plays by Charles Mee: The Life of George Washington, Full Circle, The War to End War, Vienna: Lusthaus, Gone, and Requiem for the Dead.


"The War to End War . . . is engrossing as it spins its arguments, brilliant even in its detours and diversions. . . . When the lights came back up, it was clear Mee had blown the collective mind of the audience. By sheer force of intellect and provocation, he had violated nearly all rules of theater-making and playwriting, in an evening that was never boring. . . . If there were more smart theater like this, more smart people would go to see theater."

- theater2k.com


"The titillating eeriness of impending doom is exploited so gorgeously in Vienna: Lusthaus that you can understand how civilizations become complicit in their own demise. A . . . seamless amalgam of dance, music and drama is set before World War I in Vienna, where Freud and Hitler overlapped, which it presents in a delicately surreal fashion as a hothouse of sensuality and incipient Nazism."

- The New York Times


"Through the ages, the tale of the judgment of the chalk circle has been told many times by many authors, but never, ever, not once in a blue moon, has it been told with the abundant imagination and affirmation of [Charles Mee's Full Circle] at Steppenwolf Theatre. . . . This is, as its final stage picture so beautifully shows, a play of hope, one that believes some good may someday come from our turbulent times. Rarely has that hope been expressed with such passion, such strength, such joy."

- Chicago Tribune