RBS Member Ed Tasca Publishes New Comedic Play

Parlor Games
By Ed Tasca

Cast: 4 m, 4 w
Script: 60 pages. About 90 minutes.
A funeral parlor is the perfect setting for this quirky, off-kilter farce where family and “special” friends come to mourn, to surprise, to plot, and even to negotiate their futures. Everyone thinks Donny D’Silva was killed in a car crash. But it wasn’t Donny at all. Then again, it was – until everyone assumes the real victim is Rodrigo Benitez, Donny’s former employee. Then, Rodrigo shows up, so it’s not him either! Throughout the confusion, the families of the would-be dead make every effort to take advantage of the loss of their respective loved one. So who was the real victim? In the end, it turns out to be the town’s local lothario, whose life has ended in a most fitting way!

See more at http://www.histage.com/playdetails.asp?PID=2507

From the Mailbag

Recently someone contacted the Robert Benchley Society to ask:

Can you please tell me the date that Mr. Benchley first used the quote

"there are two kinds of people in the world.."

I am writing a paper for school and need the date, at least the year, of the original quote.

Thank you very much for your assistance.

Thank you for contacting the Robert Benchley Society.

The quotation is: "There may be said to be two classes of people in the world; those who constantly divide the people of the world into two classes, and those who do not."

In is from his essay "The Most Popular Book of the Month," which is a literary review of the New York Telephone Directory as if it were a novel.

The essay also contains the hilarious line: "But it is the opinion of the present reviewer that the weakness of plot is due to the great number of characters which clutter up the pages. The Russian school is responsible for this."

It appears in the first book of Mr. Benchley's collected writings, titled, "Of All Things" and published in 1921.

David Trumbull

The Benchley Roundup One of 50 Great Books That Will Change Your Life

"Benchley taught me how to create and then mine a comedic worldview with details gleaned from everything all around me," writes humorist Merrill Markoe in the June issue of Real Simple magazine. Her comments on Benchley's influence on her career in humor are also available online at http://www.realsimple.com/work-life/entertainment/great-books-00100000101474/page8.html

Join the Boston Chapter for Cocktails on the 20th

The Boston "We've Come for the Davenport" Chapter of the Robert Benchley Society will meet for cocktails Thursday, June 20th, at 5:30 p.m. at the Downtown Harvard Club, One Federal Street.

Join the Boston Benchley Chapter for Cocktails Thursday

The Boston "We've Come for the Davenport" Chapter of the Robert Benchley Society will meet for cocktails on Thursday, May 16th, at 5:30 p.m. at the Downtown Harvard Club, One Federal Street.

From the Mail Bag

Dear Mr. Trumbull,
I am looking for a story by Robert Benchley and I wonder if you would help me. A favorite childhood memory is of my father reading Benchley aloud to us. One of our family's favorites, one that always resulted in our laughing ourselves out of breath, was his woeful tale of substituting at his wife's afternoon bridge party. I remember the way he described the silence at his table amidst the hum that arose in the room as the players finished their hands and began their postmortems: "at our table there was no postmortem, but not because there had been no death." I have lost this story; I don't remember it's title or what book it is in. Can you help? Sincere best wishes from a life-long Benchley lover, Linda W.

Dear Linda,
Thank you for contacting the Robert Benchley Society. The essay you seek is called "Not According to Hoyle" and appears at page 77 of the book Of All Things. The book is available for purchase through a link to Amazon.com on our website at http://www.robertbenchley.org/shop/index.htm. The work is in the public domain in the United States and is available to view or print out free on our website at http://www.robertbenchley.org/oat/index.htm. Yours, David Trumbull

Join the Boston Benchley Chapter for Cocktails Thursday

The Boston "We've Come for the Davenport" Chapter of the Robert Benchley Society will meet for cocktails at 5:30 p.m. at the Downtown Harvard Club, One Federal Street.