The gold standard

Kenneth Koch's plays take what is best in opera, in Japanese Noh and Kabuki, in Renaissance and Jacobean drama, in every odd and suggestive dramatic form from the miracle plays to Jarry's Ubu Roi, and make of it something remarkable and new. Among his plays that have been staged Off- and Off-Off-Broadway, The Red Robins had a celebrated New York production, with sets by Red Grooms, Alex Katz, Jane Freilicher, Rory McEwen, and Roy Lichtenstein. The Construction of Boston, put on first as a play starring the three artists who did the sets - Niki de Saint Phalle, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jean Tinguely - was later an opera, with music by Scott Wheeler. George Washington Crossing the Delaware, a short classic of avant-garde theater, has been performed all over the country. This collection also contains new plays, among them Edward and Christine, a moving work about adventure and passion that takes place in about one hundred scenes.