On Weddings and Bridging Cultures

ON MODERN PLAYS - by G.L. Horton

On Sep 12, 2004, AN wrote: i was just searching the web and came across your website. i was wondering if you had any plays based on weddings. why i ask you this: i am not a professional play writer but have been writing a play for my youth cultural show. being of an indian background we have written plays dealing with issues for indian youths growing up in australia and the difference betweeen their parents' way of thinking to ours. this year I am writing a play with a wedding theme. we've already started writing it but are still reseaching for more ideas etc. if you can get back to me that would be most appreciated. even if you don't have something but know of some sites etc which i could look at, that would be great.

Yes, I have some plays that deal with weddings: All For Love, the final scene of Under Siege, and I can think of others if I try.

In America our favorite plot, sort of our National plot, has always been a boy and girl from different backgrounds-- esp. religious backgrounds--- falling in love and getting together to marry and their reluctant families coming to accept that we are all Americans, all had immigrants somewhere in the background. "Abie's Irish Rose" was a very popular play on this subject 100 years ago. "Oklahoma", 60 years ago, gets farmers and cowboys together.

I just saw a reading of a new play in NYC where the heroine's family is from India and they are looking for a nice boy of similar background for her to marry--- because her horoscope says that if she doesn't marry by age 26 she will never marry. They are all frantically arranging dates and husband prospects for her, when the girl realizes that she loves the American boy who has been her best friend since high school. Her parents never thought of him-- they believed that he was gay! By the end of the play, which is very funny, the parents admit that the astrologer said "never marry an Indian", not "never marry", and the young man is trying very hard to convince her family that he will make a good husband.

I loved this play, because it was full of tolerance and kindness and hope. Somewhere in my files I have the name of the play and the author-- Mrinalini Something-- I will send this to you when I find it.

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