[2025-05-21]
Some playwrights believe that the characters cease to exist once the play ends. Bobby is more persistent than that. After Donny types "The End," it's just the beginning of his showdown with a main character who's been in Donny's head most of his life. Or has he? "Goodbye, Bobby" is a funny and thoughtful look at the inner lives of fictional characters and the writers who create them. This was a joy to read, and the button had me laughing out loud.

Why we write; what we write; who we write? This charming two-hander is a puzzle box dialogue between a writer and his character that explores the act of creation, what is real and what is imagined, and how it can be impossible to shed the impulse to write, no matter how hard one may try. Every writer will relate to this on-the-money scenario, which Williams brings to life with humor and head-scratching moments of familiarity.

I loved Philip Middleton Williams's full length, "Can't Live Without You," so when I saw that this short is an epilogue to that, I was VERY excited - but "Goodbye, Bobby" absolutely stands on its own and doesn't require you to be familiar with its prequel in order to understand what's going on. And what's going on is SO interesting. Any writer knows the feeling of that character you just can't shake, that character who feels so incredibly real to you. How do you know that they exist in your mind and not the other way around? A terrific what-if!