A drunk stumbled through the double doors separating the bar from the backroom that was the Old Reliable Theatre, and the entire audience believed he was out-of-his-gourd wasted. What followed was an outrageously hilarious gem that put Off-Off-Broadway on notice: gifted playwright Guy Gauthier didn’t recognize anything as off-limits. His work came to us from a heightened, if eccentric plane.

Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba and living in New York City since 1969, Guy’s plays have been performed at Playwrights’ Horizons, Judson Poets Theatre, New Theatre Workshop, New York Theatre Ensemble and The Cubiculo, as well as at The Old Reliable, and in Montreal, Winnipeg, Turkey, and in Oklahoma City. He also writes in French in which he recently completed a full-length play about the poet Baudelaire.

Previously published plays include Ego Fatigue (The Smith, as part of The Scene Award Series), The Green Man and The Red Lady (Breakthrough Press). Water & Earth, a journal was published by Impassio Press, with sections also published online by iUniverse inDarkness and Light, and  9/11 Journal in The Diarist’s Journal. His French-language Journal 5.1 was published by Les Editions du Blé, Saint-Boniface, Canada.

Guy Gauthier notes that he has never won a Nobel Prize, a Pulitzer Prize, a Tony or an OBIE, but Guy has won the laughter and the hearts of many audiences. He is not sure what to do with the hearts.

F… ! and Drinking at the Falls

Two short plays from the late 60s/early 70s set in and exemplifying that extraordinary period.

F… !

Oe-act comedy  3m 1f

A long-haired young man tries to peddle his peace- mongering papers in a conservative barbershop. When he  has been run off, the peace goes to pieces. A deliciously wry comment on the sensibilities of the time.

Drinking at the Falls

One-act comedy        5m 1f

Go-Go dancers wearing G-strings and pasties danced in oversized birdcages for the prurient pleasure of bar patrons. Bouncers were on hand to ensure the dancers’ safety. It is doubtful anyone was ready for such an over-the-top drunk as bursts into Drinking at the Falls. Wasted beyond redemption, he takes on bouncer, Go-Go girl, imaginary warships, any vestige of common sense, sobriety or even reality. Possibly the most hilariously outrageous play ever performed in Off-Off’s early years—years that saw a great deal of outrageousness, on stage, in the streets and throughout the world. A very savvy audience found the play side-splitting funny.

Performed as a double bill, F…! and Drinking at the Falls remain among the fondest of memories from Off-Off-Broadway’s Golden Years.

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