Dimes Square and Other Plays

by Matthew Gasda

Performed in loft apartments, pop-up theatres, and other nontraditional spaces, the 2022 underground hit Dimes Square announced Matthew Gasda as a dramatist of lasting power and impressive range, the theatrical chronicler of a self-chronicling generation. At a time when large, institutional theatres were still finding their post-pandemic footing, this brutal, hilarious portrait of New York City scenesters drew in new and diverse audiences by distilling the zeitgeist of our strange new era—a bitter cocktail of dirtbag politics, casual depravity, and pitiless ambition.

Bringing together four of Gasda’s most penetrating works—Dimes Square, Quartet, Berlin Story, and Minotaur—this collection surveys a fractured and exhausted cultural-intellectual landscape. From squalid apartments to country estates to hipster bars, these plays give us characters grasping for meaning and human connection in an age of material abundance and moral dislocation. Unflinching, yet marked by exquisite moments of grace, they mark the arrival of a significant dramatic voice.

Genres: Plays

283 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 15, 2023

Reviews

[Barry Pierce · Rating 3 out of 5]

nice to find out what the Dimes Square kerfuffle was all about. it's the strongest play in this collection and the one that also best approaches being an overall play. i really like Gasda's writing but i can't imagine actually watching the rest of these plays, you'd get bored of them pretty quick.

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are four plays in this collection; I will be reviewing/rating them individually as soon as I finish each.

Dimes Square: 4.5 rounded up.

IRIS: I've met her six times now and every single time she says 'nice to meet you' ... and I'm like ... 'bitch, I've met you ... many, many times ...'

NATE: We are living through the dumbest time in human history.

IRIS: How many times do I have to share my drugs with you before you recognize me as human?

NATE: Apparently more than several.

IRIS: I wish to be euthanized.
______________________________________________

KLAY: I genuinely and without exaggeration want to die right now.

CHRIS: Does anyone want to drop acid this weekend? 

IRIS: Last time I dropped acid I had this extremely long conversation with my vagina.

ROSIE: Same actually.

CHRIS: Cool. You can come talk to your pussies.

This is the play for which Gasda is best known, and it catapulted him into the spotlight a year ago with a nice profile in the NYT (see below). It is so similar in tone and themes to his earlier play Ardor (which I also really liked!) though, that he might as well have just combined them into one long epic!* The characters go by different names here, but they are all similar 'types' - most in the 20-30 range, all on the fringes of the various artistic disciplines, although most here are aspiring writers.

The title refers to a specific small artsy section of NYC, and this takes place in the Manhattan apartment of Stefan, whose first novel has just made a splash and sold to Netflix for adaptation. Various friends, frenemies, relatives and acquaintances crash to do various drugs and bitch about their lives and each other, often with some very clever epigrammatic retorts and putdowns (see supra). My only real (minor) quibble is that it just sort of ends without any real conclusion.

*Apparently Gasda HAS written a sequel, called 'Afters' - which has yet to be published.

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The second play in this volume is Minotaur, also (obvs.) available as a stand-alone. I'm giving it a 3.5, rounded up to 4. I complained about Dimes Sq. that it didn't really have an ending - this one HAS one - I just didn't like it!! (There's just no pleasing me, is there?!). It involves the (spoiler alert) appearance of a ghostly figure - which in an otherwise naturalistic play I found to be a cop-out.

The good news is that in lieu of Gasda's usual sprawling canvas of too many characters to keep track of (9 and 11 in his other two plays I've read), this is more of a chamber piece about a family composed of two daughters, their father, stepmother and stepbrother - with whom both are having an affair. Whoops! (... a word Gasda is fond of using himself!). It's also much shorter than his uze - with a running time of around 75 minutes. All that is to the good - but I didn't find these characters to be terribly compelling - and hadn't a clue what the title meant, till the explication in the synopsis of the single edition.

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The third play is Quartet, which I'm giving a 4.5, rounded down to 4. As the title suggests, it features four characters: Jay and Elizabeth, who are about to get married the next day at the beginning of the play, and Jay's best man, Nick, and his longtime GF Ellie. The first scene ends with a bit of partner swapping, the repercussions of which play out over the following four scenes. All four characters are very well-defined, and the dialogue is both naturalistic and often witty; it's just that none of them are (intentionally) very likeable. And the 'startling' revelation in the last moments is both inevitable and can be foreseen from a mile away.

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The final play in this volume is Berlin Story, another five character study of ennui, this time set in the German city, rather than his usual NYC. I'd give this one 4 stars; it's typical Gasda, in that various artistic types - comprised of an older porn filmmaker and young retired starlet, a war reporter and his German girlfriend, and a British art gallery attendant - constantly verbalize their unhappiness and needs, while at the same time betraying an almost total lack of self-awareness. And like the others, it's both sad and at times humorous - it's the one I'd be least interested in seeing performed, however.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/31/st...
https://bombmagazine.org/articles/202...
https://www.interviewmagazine.com/cul...
https://www.dappledthings.org/reviews...

[Sav · Rating 1 out of 5]

If Annie Baker had a god complex and was completely devoid of compassion. Matthew Gasda, for the love of some god, humble thyself enough to hire an editor

[Nick Reynolds · Rating 2 out of 5]

purely as a business decision you have to respect the first clout movers advantage of naming your play dimes square, thus ensuring the new york times write up and your name in all the vapid thinkpieces about this scene.

this is a minor work and destined to be forgotten but there is value in considering exactly why this scene/play existed at the time it did, why exactly it held up these particular transgressions (doing ketamine, saying "retard") as noteworthy, what exactly this was in response to, and maybe most importantly, what comes after.

[Lauren Schneider]

some of these were pretty touching. the dimes square one did kind of have the vibe of a summer camp skit, where it lampooned the ppl who were probably in the audience and they’re all buddies

[RMNT · Rating 5 out of 5]

got these plays after seeing Doomers in Chinatown - which was brilliant and hilarious.

I love how Matthew captures the ethos of lost millennials and gen x and z in big cities. The incisive comments, the contempt for each other, the repressed feelings of superiority, the deep desire to be recognized for their (probably inexistent) genius. i love this so much

the funniest thing to me is also that people here hating on his work are EXACTLY the subjects of his work

can't wait to see what Gasda does next

[Dearwassily · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were a few good lines/ideas scattered throughout. While it might be more interesting to see these plays performed, they fell flat on the page, with a lot of empty, filler dialogue.

[Mattschratz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did not know whether to give this book five stars or one star. I imagine that it is a very deft and accurate depiction of how creative people in New York talk. I also hated the entire experience of reading it. This book made me feel like I had locked-in syndrome. I just wanted the people to stop talking. I try not to be one of those people we're supposed to look down on who want likable characters, but I mean. Most of the people in this book sound like Bret Easton Ellis characters but they never mention any brands or band names. It turns out the bands and brand names were critical to making those people tolerable on the page. These plays make Tao Lin seem like Henry James. They made me very glad that I am old and have no creative ambition and will never be in one of the apartments that they describe. I have not been this happy to be old, in fact, since I googled a Gillette Labs shaving commercial and learned that the people whom I did not recognize in it are a father and son TikTok star duo. After I googled that I looked out the window for a long time, and I did the same thing after I read these.

[David Leeds · Rating 2 out of 5]

I guess this is a somewhat accurate depiction of how the most annoying people in Manhattan talk sometimes? But I'm not sure what this play was supposed to get me to think or consider about Dimes Square. I spent my share of evenings in 2021-22 grabbing drinks at Forgtmenot and Clandestino after a dinner at Wu's Wonton King or a midnight movie at Metrograph, so I was excited for a piece of modern fiction to shed some light on this scene. In the end, I was disappointed at how little insight Gasda brought to his examination(?) of the scene of faux bohemians who gave rise to the equally annoying (and thankfully now deceased) moment of cultrual fascination with Dimes Square. I don't have any greater understanding now than I did before of why so many smug hipsters spent a year trying to speed-gentrify one specific corner in Chinatown, let alone why so many people cared or what that moment revealed about New York's alternative youth culture.

Gasda doesn't even get the details of the neighborhood totally right: there's a plot point that an indie filmmaker character (Terry) has a film currently showing at the nearby Metrograph theater, which is ludicrous because the Metrograph is a repertory theater that specializes in arthouse classics. It would have made way more sense for Terry's movie to be screening at the IFC Center or Film Forum, but then I guess that would have required the play to use a cultural touchstone from Greenwich Village and take us out of Dimes Square. I'm nitpicking here, but what is the point of naming your play after a micro-neighborhood if you're not going to go to the lengths necessary to make your portrait of that neighborhood ring true?

I'm glad my friends have more interesting things to say than Gasda's characters, at least. Shout out to the Perfectly Imperfect newsletter for letting me know this play existed.

[Elliott Snyder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gasda hits the zeitgeist in this humorous and poignant play collection. The plays vividly and immediately transport the reader to the fast-paced, fast-talking (NSFW) world of downtown Manhattan. Gasda's plays, especially the cult-classic Dimes Square, cloak the reader in the kind of hush-hushed exclusivity of its settings while leading to the provocative questioning of everything we have socially aspired to be. A cutting critique and a darn good time - this one is one to read more than once.

My personal favorite was Quartet. A recurrent strength of Gasda's is the playfulness in his writing of sexuality and homosexuality. This fun jaunt of good (italics) friends is a blast every time. The writing is quippy, smart, elevated, and enjoyable. The sexual politics are intense enough to keep you on the edge of your seat and funny enough to keep you laughing. Like the rest of the collection, Gasda creates compelling characters whom you want to read more about.

[Nicholas J · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Theatre of Casual Cruelty. Tragicomic plays and characters that deftly and often hilariously portray “the dumbest time in human history,” as one character proclaims. Not many theatre writers are able to achieve this level of verisimilitude and effortless naturalism in approaching contemporary life and its atomized, narcissistic core. So much subtext to chew on — wonderful plays for actors. Works beautifully on the page, but if you get the chance to see any of these plays revived onstage, don’t pass it up.

[Sean Lynch · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection establishes Matthew Gasda as a fresh and much-needed voice in American theatre. Gasda returns to the fundamentals of character-driven storytelling, exploring the intricacies of interpersonal relationships with nuance and precision. His voice is a refreshing change from the sanitized, predictable trends in contemporary theatre, capturing the cultural zeitgeist with a sharpness and relevance unmatched by anyone else writing today. This is a fantastic collection, and I highly recommend it.

[Frank Mosley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Plays are meant to be performed, not read---yes. But you'll be hard pressed to find as great a read as DIMES SQUARE AND OTHER PLAYS. For anyone not familiar with the work of Matthew Gasda, this is a thrilling, immersive entry point. The plays -- including his hit DIMES SQUARE -- all feature characters who linger long after being read. Rich with nuanced dialogue and assured structure, these plays introduce a fresh, startling voice that taps into class, sex, and generational divides. Good thing another book is already on the way because you'll be wanting more.

[Lee Klein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some good epigrams in these plays, Dimes Square more than the others. The characters are mostly execrable humans but that's OK. Reminiscent of Bret Easton Ellis at times. Easy reading. Lotta typos. I haven't read a play in probably 20 years so I can't really contextualize or compare. There's that, I guess. Probably the first contemporary play I've read since Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf??

[Janna Shaftan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think sometimes you recognize your own loneliness in someone and in those cases it’s best to just turn and walk the other way… because there’s no actual otherness… there’s just sameness, and that’s deeply redundant

[Benjamin Burgis · Rating 3 out of 5]

It had its moments.

[Izabel Mar · Rating 5 out of 5]

LOVE seeing my culture depicted in writing

[Ian Nabi Ra · Rating 3 out of 5]

The introduction was so out of touch and self flattering it’s crazy but what followed was pretty good I can’t even lie
The dialogue between the sisters in Minotaur stood out

[Sarah Bloom · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty bad. First play was the best. Second was so on the nose it was intolerable.

[Wiley June · Rating 3 out of 5]

riddled with spelling errors

[Cath · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read for a workshop- otherwise I simply wouldn’t have. Cannot tell if this is brilliant and above my head or just not well executed

[Brooks Sterritt · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Sometimes I see my face in the coke mirror, and I'm like is that really me?"