Unemployed mailman Humbert Lavoignet has fallen into a six-month trance. When he awakes, he announces that God has ordered him to do something wonderful, and he sets about building a tower made of junk. With echoes of Don Quixote, THE WONDERFUL TOWER OF HUMBERT LAVOIGNET is a play about genius, vision, and divine obsession. "... THE WONDERFUL TOWER is a funny, poignant, and engrossing story centering around Humbert Lavoignet, an unemployed mailman who has fallen into a six-month trance. When Humbert awakes, he announces that God has ordered him to do something wonderful. Humbert's inspiration is to build a tower of junk ... Humbert is willing to sacrifice everything for the tower: his home, his marriage, and the love of his son ... Lynne Alvarez's story is novel and coherent ... The characters are realistic, and speak with the simple poetry of ordinary people thrust into extraordinary circumstances ... While it is too early, and perhaps unimportant, to predict what place THE WONDERFUL TOWER OF HUMBERT LAVOIGNET will hold in theatrical history, it is fair to call it one of the best and most significant plays to open [this year] ..." Paul Dwyer, The Times Record (Albany) "THE WONDERFUL TOWER OF HUMBERT LAVOIGNET is a play about vision, faith, and sacrifice ... Alvarez has kept HUMBERT LAVOIGNET lean, light, and unencumbered ... genuinely entertaining and engaging ..." Jim Reilly, The Saratogian "Lynne Alvarez is an enchantress. Her plays unfurl like flying carpets the joy, the daring, the loop, the loops ... prepare yourself for an exhilarating flight." Tina Howe, playwright "The plays of Lynne Alvarez possess a poetry and eerie quietude that is unique in our dramatic literature." Mac Wellman, playwright "In her magical and mysterious plays, Alvarez creates characters filled with longing, imagination and an outrageous sense of humor. Her highly theatrical landscapes invite us into a world where towers rise up, people flee their pasts, love appears around surprising corners and the poet in all of us is reborn. Alvarez has a unique and joyful voice that celebrates the complexities of the American experience in all its diverse and startling incarnations. This collection is a major achievement by one of the best kept secrets of the American Theater." Carey Perloff, Artistic Director, American Conservatory Theatre

The Wonderful Tower of Humbert Lavoignet

Literature & Fiction

Alvarez, Lynne

Dramas & Plays

Broadway Play Publishing, Incorporated

Romola & Nijinsky

Hidden Parts

Waterfront Pr

Because Alvarez's voice as a writer does not easily reflect (perhaps, in fact, it refracts) her identity as a woman and a Hispanic, and yet her name clearly identifies her as both, as a playwright she is often seen as neither Hispanic nor non-Hispanic, neither female nor non-female, and as such, she slips through the categories into unidentifiable ambiguity. This collection, therefore, is a valuable publication for its celebrates such ambiguity and problematizes the easy categorization of works of art. - Mary Resing, New England Theatre Journal, December 1999

Lynne Alvarez: Collected Plays, Vol. 1

Smith and Kraus

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Books by Alvarez, Lynne