Chayefsky, Paddy
Entry updated 16 September 2024. Tagged: Author, Theatre.
Working name of US playwright and author Sidney Aaron Chayefsky (1923-1981), most famous for his work as a Television dramatist; Marty (produced 1953) marks for many a culmination (and a sign of the passing) of the Golden Age of US television drama. The Tenth Man (first performed 1959; 1960) is a Dybbuk fantasy based on The Dybbuk (1920) by S Ansky (1863-1920), which revolves around an exorcism that serves as a revealing mirror to the exorcists. His sf novel, Altered States (1978) (see Metaphysics), propounds the highly dubious Lamarckian concept (see Evolution; Pseudoscience) that a person's altered consciousness would alter her/his genetic makeup, in this case via an intense experience of Sensory Deprivation which re-invokes an inward primordial being (see also Apes as Human); it was filmed in 1980 as Altered States; due to disputes with the makers, Chayefsky's screenplay was signed Sidney Aaron. [JC]
see also: Devolution.
Sidney Aaron Chayefsky
born New York: 29 January 1923
died New York: 1 August 1981
works
- The Tenth Man (New York: Random House, 1960) [play: first performed 5 November 1959 The Booth Theatre, New York: hb/Zeke Ziner]
- Altered States (New York: Harper and Row, 1978) [hb/]
links
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