In my recent reading, I’ve seen the term hortus conclusus and references to Hegel and Husserl. Which immediately made me think of The Courtship of Barbara Holt, my play. So I took one of the proof copies from the shelf and read it again.
Like John Donnelly’s Gold, which I also re-read this year, the play amused me because I get all the jokes within it, and some still catch me by surprise enough to make me laugh. Although the allusions to hortus conclusus, Hegel, and Husserl did not specifically.
The plot, in case you haven’t seen it recently, is that an English major in college, Mark, really likes a girl (Barbara Holt), and when he talks to her, he spouts blank verse. Barbara’s friend Jenn likes Mark. Mark’s friend Mike likes Jenn, so he tries to get Mark to woo Barbara more effectively. Rick, another friend of Mark (called ‘Phil’ by Mike because he’s a philosophy major and hence brings the three Hs into it) thinks Mark is trying to woo Jenn, so he tries to help get them together. And so on.
At any rate, there’s some simple humor in it, and a little bit of obscure humor like I fancy in it. I’m almost tempted to release a footnoted edition just so everyone will know just how clever I am, but I’d probably sell fewer copies of the annotated Barbara Holt than the original.
