{"product_id":"the-barry-years-jess-barbagallo-9798992283952","title":"The Barry Years: Two Plays","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eRich in swagger, invention, mischief and heat...the crispness and bite of Barbagallo's text is, recursively, a love letter to writing itself. -- \u003ci\u003eTime Out NY\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Barry Years\u003c\/i\u003e includes three plays from writer-director-performer Jess Barbagallo, who has shaped an entire generation of New York theater with his tender haywire wit. \u003ci\u003eMy Old Man and Other Stories\u003c\/i\u003e follows Barry--a forlorn Tom Waits impersonator with a water-stained floor and romance-induced insomnia--through a sequence of episodic scenes featuring emotional incompetents seeking love without compromise. An homage to small-town decay and reduced expectations, \u003ci\u003eMy Old Man and Other Stories\u003c\/i\u003e is at once lambent with unrequited longing and crisp as the mechanics of life. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBarry returns in \u003ci\u003eWeekend at Barry's\/Lesbian Lighthouse\u003c\/i\u003e, a pair of back-to-back episodes of television-as-theater, the second knocked-off from (knocked up by?) the first. Now a forty-something cultural worker whose career-averse lifestyle has led him to a personal and professional dead end, Barry bounces between questionable jobs and even more questionable lovers. In language that is winking, layered, [and] dazzling (Helen Shaw, \u003ci\u003eVulture\u003c\/i\u003e), Barbagallo delivers a devastatingly precise and zany send-up of the contemporary art world that teeters on that silver highwire between despair and hilarity. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eWeekend at Barry's: Greatest Hits\u003c\/i\u003e--featuring Barry but narrated by Biv, your resident narrator, dreamer, and shit-starter--is kind of like a spin-off. And also a bunch of short stories. Anyway, it asks us to reexamine our formalities, in Biv's words. Learning to love in this way is a form of radicalism because it means that perverse love--that is the love we do against the structures that seek to organize us in brutality--is the only love. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Jess Barbagallo\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9798992283952\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e 53rd State Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 07\/21\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 205\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback","brand":"Jess Barbagallo","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":47520767770879,"sku":"9798992283952","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_2bc1441c-93c0-487f-9fd0-a4b48c1977b3.jpg?v=1762886971","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/the-barry-years-jess-barbagallo-9798992283952","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}