One of my favorite books in 2010 was the charming & touching, I, Shudder, by Paul Rudnick. This very funny memoir is rendered in Rudnick's gorgeous, zinger filled language & reminds me of the need to keep my wit sharp when facing life's many obstacles & absurdities. I, Shudder is one of a series of humorous collections that I went for in 2010, a not very funny year. It is from a writer who ranks with David Sedaris & Augusten Burroughs as one of the most gifted & hilarious social observers.
Proudly open about his homosexuality, Paul Rudnick is one of the most interesting comic writers at work today. He uses sharp wit & gentle satire to comment on contemporary mores. Unlike many satirists, his work is generally more positive than negative. Rudnick knew he was gay by the time he went to Yale University, where he received a B. A. in theater.
To me, Paul Rudnick has a wicked way with a set up & a joke, & he is great with the one-liners, but a sustained & complex plot seems to elude him. But, I still find him to be a world class comic writer & I always relish his pieces in the New Yorker. I first came to know him from his terrifically funny play- I Hate Hamlet, a play about a struggling actor & his haunted apartment. The New York production was noted mostly for the tantrums thrown by actor Nicol Williamson as the ghost of John Barrymore. Although the original production closed after fewer than 100 performances, but it has had several successful revivals in regional theaters.
I loved his column in Premier magazine, which he wrote under the name Libby Gellman-Waxner. Rudnick came into his own with Jeffrey, an ultimately life-affirming comedy about a gay man in New York City negotiating his need for love & commitment in the age of AIDS. A nearly universally appreciated play, Jeffrey has been produced throughout the United States & around the world. The original off-Broadway production won an Obie Award, an Outer Critics Circle Award, & the John Gassner Award for Outstanding New American Play.
Rudnick has also written & script-doctored screenplays.In I, Shudder he writes of the original version of the film Sister Act, which he intended as a raucous Bette Midler vehicle. When the movie studio recast it as a Whoopi Goldberg showcase & revised his script, he insisted on using a pseudonym in the credits. Rudnick also wrote the screenplays for The Addams Family & Addams Family Values.
Mr. Rudnic grew up well aware that his was one of the few Jewish families in Piscataway, N.J., but he assumed that everybody must be gay like him. Rudnick: ''When it finally dawned on me that there were straight people on the block, I felt sympathy for them.''
Rudnick successfully adapted Jeffrey for the 1995 screen version directed by Christopher Ashley, starring Steven Weber, Sigourney Weaver, Patrick Stewart, & Nathan Lane. The gay romantic comedy became a great hit with gay audiences.
Rudnik's most famous film is In & Out, about the accidental "outing" of a small town schoolteacher by a former student on national television. Loosely inspired by Tom Hanks' acceptance speech at the 1994 Academy Awards in which he thanked a gay former teacher, the film is well liked by critics & audiences. Directed by Frank Oz, produced by openly gay- Scott Rudin, & starring Kevin Kline & Tom Selleck, In & Out is particularly interesting for its approach to homosexuality,a serious "problem" in most films. The film uses the conventions of classic screwball comedies. Although the homophobes are properly skewered, the film is full of good humor. In & Out seems to me to be less a satire, & more a comic vision of a more relaxed & accepting middle America in which gay people are free to be themselves & are still loved by family & community.
Any temptation Mr. Rudnick felt to relocate to L.A. & concentrate on films ended with his inability to get a driver's license. Rudnick: ''The last time I took the test, they had those plastic cones for parallel parking, I nudged one, & the guy said, 'You just killed a child.' & I said: 'I did not. I just killed a rubber cone.' ''
Today is his birthday. He turns 43. Give his recent memoir a read. He has a new novel coming out in early 2011, & I can’t wait!
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