Tru is a play by Jay Presson Allen

Jay Presson Allen

Jay Presson Allen was an American screenwriter, playwright, stage director, television producer and novelist. Known for her withering wit and sometimes-off-color wisecracks, she was one of the few women making a living as a screenwriter at a time when women were a rarity in the profession...

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Adapted from the words and works of Truman Capote

Truman Capote

Truman Streckfus Persons , known as Truman Capote , was an American author, many of whose short stories, novels, plays, and nonfiction are recognized literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's and the true crime novel In Cold Blood , which he labeled a "nonfiction novel." At...

, it is set in the writer's New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 apartment at 870 United Nations Plaza the week before Christmas 1975. An excerpt from Capote's infamous unfinished roman a clef

Roman à clef

Roman à clef or roman à clé , French for "novel with a key", is a phrase used to describe a novel about real life, overlaid with a façade of fiction. The fictitious names in the novel represent real people, and the "key" is the relationship between the nonfiction and the fiction...

, Answered Prayers

Answered Prayers: The Unfinished Novel

Answered Prayers is an unfinished novel by American author Truman Capote, published posthumously in 1986 in England and in 1987 in the United States.- History :...

, recently has been published in Esquire

Esquire (magazine)

Esquire is a men's magazine, published in the U.S. by the Hearst Corporation. Founded in 1932, it flourished during the Great Depression under the guidance of founder and editor Arnold Gingrich.-History:...

and, having recognized thinly veiled versions of themselves, Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

 socialites such as Babe Paley

Babe Paley

Barbara "Babe" Cushing Mortimer Paley was an American socialite and style icon. She was known by the popular nickname "Babe" for most of her life. She was named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1958....

 and Slim Keith

Slim Keith

Nancy "Slim" Keith, Lady Keith was a New York socialite and fashion icon during the 1950s and 1960s, exemplifying the American jet set...

 turn their backs on the man they once considered a close confidant. Alone and lonely, Capote - soothing himself with pills, vodka, cocaine, and chocolate truffles - muses about his checkered life and career in what is essentially a two-act monodrama

Monodrama

A monodrama is a theatrical or operatic piece played by a single actor or singer, usually portraying one character.- Monodrama in opera :...

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There is one anachronism

Anachronism

An anachronism—from the Greek ανά and χρόνος — is an inconsistency in some chronological arrangement, especially a chronological misplacing of persons, events, objects, or customs in regard to each other...

 in the script. At one point Capote, talking about suicide

Suicide

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

, states he has stashed enough pills to stage his own Jonestown Massacre. The Jonestown Massacre did not occur until 1978, three years after the period portrayed in Tru.

After 11 previews, the Broadway production

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

, directed by Allen, opened on December 14, 1989 at the Booth Theatre

Booth Theatre

The Booth Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 222 West 45th Street in midtown-Manhattan, New York City.Architect Henry B. Herts designed the Booth and its companion Shubert Theatre as a back-to-back pair sharing a Venetian Renaissance-style façade...

, where it ran for 297 performances.

In his review in The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, Frank Rich

Frank Rich

Frank Rich is an American essayist and op-ed columnist who wrote for The New York Times from 1980, when he was appointed its chief theatre critic, until 2011...

 said, "Intentionally or not, Tru is a creep show: a hybrid of necrophilia

Necrophilia

Necrophilia, also called thanatophilia or necrolagnia, is the sexual attraction to corpses,It is classified as a paraphilia by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association. The word is artificially derived from the ancient Greek words: νεκρός and φιλία...

 and tame fan-magazine journalism that doesn't so much rekindle fascination with a troubled writer as reawaken the willies prompted by those disoriented talk-show appearances... that were the desperate final act of his career... In place of a life portrait with depth, Tru settles for its wind-up Mme. Tussaud

Madame Tussauds

Madame Tussauds is a wax museum in London with branches in a number of major cities. It was founded by wax sculptor Marie Tussaud and was formerly known as "Madame Tussaud's", but the apostrophe is no longer used...

's caricature of the wrecked 1975 model Capote. This Tru is sporadically funny - if one shares Mrs. Allen's taste for the campiest of anecdotes and one-liners - and rarely boring. But since the soul of the younger Capote doesn't shine through as Mr. Morse's youthful spirit does, the potentially touching drama of decay is lost. The complex, possibly tragic figure of a wasted artist is replaced by a maudlin, some might say antediluvian, stereotype of Boys in the Band

The Boys in the Band (play)

The Boys in the Band is a play by Mart Crowley. The off-Broadway production, directed by Robert Moore, opened on April 14, 1968 at Theater Four, where it ran for 1,001 performances, an extremely healthy run for both an off-Broadway production, and one not geared to a mainstream audience...

vintage."

Robert Morse

Robert Morse

Robert Morse is an American actor and singer. Morse is best known for his appearances in musicals and plays on Broadway. He has also acted in movies and television shows. His best known role is that of J. Pierrepont Finch in the 1961 Broadway musical, and 1967 film How to Succeed in Business...

 won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play

Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play

The Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play presented since 1947, is awarded to actors in productions of new or revival plays.-1940s:*1947 - José Ferrer – Cyrano de Bergerac / Fredric March – Years Ago...

 and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show

Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show

The Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show is presented by the Drama Desk, a committee of New York City theatre critics, writers, and editors...

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In 1992, Morse recreated his performance for the PBS

Public Broadcasting Service

The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....

 series American Playhouse

American Playhouse

American Playhouse is an anthology television series periodically broadcast by Public Broadcasting Service in the United States.It premiered on January 12, 1982 with The Shady Hill Kidnapping, written and narrated by John Cheever and directed by Paul Bogart...

and won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie. Morse also directed a production of the play in Toronto

Toronto

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

 in 1996, starring Canadian actor Louis Negin

Louis Negin

Louis Negin is a Canadian actor, recently best known for his roles in the films of Guy Maddin.Negin, most prominently a stage actor, had his earliest film and television roles in the 1950s Canadian dramatic anthology series First Performance, and as a chorus member in Tyrone Guthrie's 1957 film of...

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External links

• 870 United Nations Plaza Detailed building information, building ratings and area maps