An Adult Evening of Shel Silverstein by Shel Silverstein
A Forgotten Classic
I am forever grateful to my university’s drama society for putting on An Adult Evening of Shel Silverstein, and opening my eyes to the wonder of Uncle Shelby’s adult stuff.
Quick word of warning: this is a lot closer to Freakin’ at the Freakers’ Ball than The Giving Tree.
It’s a series of dramatic shorts, each one riffing around two or three characters interacting in a dark, twisted, well observed, and often hilarious situation. Yes, it’s a script, and I don’t normally read scripts in my spare time, but this is what writing should be, and you’d be a fool to pass it up.
As is often the way with a collection – the quality does vary a little from skit to skit – but when Shel Silverstein is not at his best it’s only ‘not superlative’, and when he’s good: it’s so good you’ll be stopping friends, family and passers-by to read it out to them – because you want to see that look on someone else’s face as these beauties hit them for the first time.
This book has no production values whatsoever, no Amazon reviews and very little in the way of Google-hits, but I beg you – for your sake and for the greater good of humanity: give this book a go and spread the word.
Hannah Chutzpah 