←Recommendations of Leave It

Not everyone can write well about pop culture. Goodwin can, making fine art from pop art--and with heart.

What a fascinating and clever conceit. Goodwin takes a family's personal story of heartbreak and universalizes it by making it about one of America's most beloved (and wholesome) sitcom clans. This well-crafted piece really hits home. Also, perfect title.

The 1950’s meet the 60’s, the 70’s and beyond. Goodwin glimpses at the ideal family from our youth and puts it into perspective with the times that followed. If’s a tough reckoning. It’s probably a mirror or stepstone for every generation that follows. Wish we could reverse the trend. What a wonderful world it could be.

Wow. This is such a powerful play. I would watch "Leave it to Beaver" reruns all the time as a kid and William J. Goodwin has taken the characters from the show and placed them in a thought-provoking and poignant drama. I cannot recommend this play enough. Well done!

The 1950s were a time of perfect families: Father knew best and mothers vacuumed in dresses and pearls. Kids biggest problems came from white lies they told while trying to hide mistakes like breaking a car window with a softball. It was a time of absolute moral clarity, clarity that was subsequently lost in the fog of a jungle war. In William Goodwin's brilliant short play, "Leave It," the Vietnam War has cleaved America's beloved Cleaver family right down the middle with its baggage of drugs, betrayal and moral ambiguity. It's the story of a generation briefly and powerfully told.

This is not just a well-written drama about the survivors after war and their complicated feelings as the ones left behind -- although it is that. Once you get the references, it becomes a play about what happened to the innocent people we knew from our childhoods, and about the innocence we had in the late 1950's and early 60's. Nicely done.

No doubt we all have fond memories of those dopey 1950s TV sitcoms where the stakes were never more serious than who forgot to clean the dishes that night. With similarities to Bert Royal's Peanuts-based "Dog Sees God," Bill Goodwin brilliantly updates "Leave it to Beaver" to recreate an angry and bitter imaginary meeting between Lumpy and the Beave at the Vietnam Memorial in DC, after Wally's death in the Vietnam War. There is no reconciliation between these two survivors, but watch for the healing touch of Wally's jacket at the end. Perfect punning title too.

It's one thing to have a play about the complicated and divisive times of the Vietnam War...It's another to take the Cleaver family directly into the heart of the conflict. What a pleasure it was to see this short play by WILLIAM J. GOODWIN at the 2023 Midwest Dramatists Conference. GOODWIN weaves a tender and powerful story of the later years of Wally, Mr. Cleaver, Mrs. Cleaver, Clarence, and Beaver himself. Questions without answers... Traumas without glory... GOODWIN show us the real meaning of family.

Reminiscent of "Dog Sees God", Goodwin's "Leave It" takes the trappings of an all american 1950s sitcom family and forces them to face the harsh realities and aftermath of the Vietnam war in this powerful and moving short play. highly recommended

An iconic TV show from the 1950s featuring a kid, his older brother, and his all-American suburban family meets the shattering impacts of the Vietnam War. A more dramatic loss of innocence is hard to imagine. Doesn't take long to figure out who the characters are, but this powerful piece is about more than that -- much more. William J. Goodwin asks big questions here -- Was there a "right" side to the war? What did so many deaths mean? The play offers no answers, showing us instead the ongoing human toll. Beautifully done.