The Dazzle

Fact may be stranger than fiction, but fictionalized fact often makes for the best story. In The Dazzle, playwright Richard Greenberg (of Tony-winning Take Me Out fame) fictionalizes the already strange tale of the Collyer brothers, Depression-era America’s answer to Howard Hughes. Homer and Langley are the stuff of urban legend: As the family fortune dwindled, the brothers became increasingly eccentric, living alone in a broken-down mansion in once-fashionable Harlem. When New York police finally broke into the home in 1947, they found the brothers’ decaying bodies deep in a labyrinth of old newspapers and junk. (Which reminds us, it’s about time we cleaned our living room.) The Dazzle offers a compelling peek through boarded windows at the Collyers’ guarded existence and their enigmatic demise.