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“There is something unsettlingly, incandescently specific about the portrait of the Blake family in Stephen Karam’s funny, poignant, even chilling new comedy-drama, The Humans . . . The playwright delves into the dynamics of this clan with a gentleness that feels like compassion and a scrupulousness that borders on the forensic . . . The Humans is the sort of impeccably constructed play that should be a regular inhabitant on Broadway, not the occasional, surprising guest.”
—PETER MARKS, WASHINGTON POST
“Karam, whose flair for character and context was evident in the 2012 Pulitzer Prize finalist Sons of the Prophet, isn’t interested in a polemic. The Humans rather considers the trials its highly imperfect subjects face in a highly imperfect world, and resolves, without ever approaching sentimentality, that love is nonetheless resilient.”
—ELYSA GARDNER, USA TODAY
“A play of uncommon strengths; fresh, funny, piercing and perceptive. The Humans isn’t just a family portrait—it’s a mirror. Karam has an eye for detail on a near cellular level, an ear for authentic dialogue and a superlative ability to balance laughter and sorrow.”
—JOE DZIEMIANOWICZ, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
“The Humans is an absolute triumph.”
—MARK KENNEDY, ASSOCIATED PRESS
“The formula for a family-reunion play goes like this: Multiple generations of a clan get together for a holiday, air their dirty laundry at dinner, start fighting over dessert and at the end of the day are weary of battle. Stephen Karam’s warm-hearted play The Humans follows the formula, but only to the point of exposing everybody’s secrets. Instead of erupting in bitter hatred, Karam’s characters respond to these revelations with deep love.”
—MARILYN STASIO, VARIETY
“There is so much love, dread, tenderness and brutality in The Humans that it is hard to believe just ninety minutes pass through Stephen Karam’s deeply felt family tragicomedy thriller . . . The Humans burrows into the lives of an Irish-American family with wit, tenderness and blistering brutality.”
—LINDA WINER, NEWSDAY
“A quietly stunning new play by Stephen Karam . . . The beat-by-beat honesty, wit and intelligence of the writing kept me alert to every changing nuance. It has completely earned its place on the Broadway stage; and does so without the supposed benefit of star casting. What will sell it is the play itself.”
—MARK SHENTON, STAGE
“There’s no plate-smashing moment that you see in more histrionic family-gathering dramas (all the flatware in Brigid’s apartment is plastic anyway). Each of the Blakes, even Momo, are masking major tragedies in their lives, but even those are revealed in ways that feel utterly unforced. Some moments are absolutely devastating—but it’s unfair to label the play as simply “depressing,” because it’s depressing in the way life is depressing and hilarious in the way life is hilarious . . . Karam’s transcendently mundane play is a reminder that family dinner dramas can still be surprising—and they don’t need ghosts or things that go bump in the night to achieve that. Real life is scary enough.”
—STEPHAN LEE, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
“The Humans is a funny, mournful, richly detailed and deeply humane study of a beleaguered family celebrating Thanksgiving dinner in a tumbledown Chinatown apartment.”
—ALEXIS SOLOSKI, GUARDIAN
“The Humans is monumentally affecting, and something for which theatergoers should be oh so very thankful . . . An eloquent and wholly relatable modern family drama. I loved The Humans.”
—ROBERT KAHN, NBC
“We feel a tidal wave of emotion at The Humans . . . Never has there been a more realistic encapsulation of the electricity generated when multiple generations come together under one roof.”
—ZACHARY STEWART, THEATERMANIA
“Stephen Karam’s beautiful, funny-sad and ultimately wrenching portrait of a troubled lower-middle-class Pennsylvania family . . . builds on the ample promise of Karam’s earlier works, confirming him as a uniquely probing investigator of the contemporary American psyche.”
—DAVID ROONEY, HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
“The Humans is tremendously exciting theater. Karam’s fine sophomore play Sons of the Prophet was a Pulitzer finalist; The Humans takes him to an even higher level. You won’t see a better play this year.”
—JEREMY GERARD, DEADLINE
“Though this is Karam’s first Broadway transfer, it shares with his previous plays a knack for unlocking our darkest, coldest truths through precise application of light and heat. This bestows upon what is, at least at first, a pretty typical dysfunctional-family drama new layers of depth, weight and significance that make this as effective and affecting as anything the Main Stem has seen in years.”
—MATTHEW MURRAY, TALKIN’ BROADWAY
The Humans is copyright © 2016 by Stephen Karam
Foreword is copyright © 2016 by Samuel G. Freedman
The Humans is published by Theatre Communications Group, Inc.,
520 Eighth Avenue, 24th Floor, New York, NY 10018-4156
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio or television reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that this material, being fully protected under the Copyright Laws of the United States of America and all other countries of the Berne and Universal Copyright Conventions, is subject to a royalty. All rights, including but not limited to, professional, amateur, recording, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio and television broadcasting, and the rights of translation into foreign languages are expressly reserved. Particular emphasis is placed on the question of readings and all uses of this book by educational institutions, permission for which must be secured from the author’s representative: John Buzzetti, William Morris Endeavor Entertainment, 1325 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019, (212) 903-1166.
Epigraphs: Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill was first published by the Ralston Society in 1937; Penguin, New York, 2005. The Uncanny by Sigmund Freud was first published in Imago, Bd. V., 1919; The Uncanny, Penguin, New York, 2003. “Dance of Death” by Federico García Lorca, published in Poet in New York, Grove Press, New York, 2008.
The publication of The Humans by Stephen Karam, through TCG’s Book Program, is made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
TCG books are exclusively distributed to the book trade by Consortium
