Theresa Rebeck: Complete Plays, Vol. 3: Short Plays, 1989-2005
The short plays in volume 3, in particular, display Rebeck's ability to establish a character and set a story going within a few, adroitly polished lines of dialogue. A wicked sense of humor helps; see especially her sharp satire of show-biz politics, The Contract, in which an actor wins over an agent only when he convinces him that he doesn't care about a contract. It helps, too, that Rebeck is a great mimic, who can write down an astonishing variety of speaking styles and even other playwrights' writing "voices," as in the pointedly feminist What We Are Up Against, which wittily borrows from the David Mamet playbook. Helbig, Jack