Reading McCarthy Episode 58: Staying off the Tracks of THE SUNSET LIMITED with Dianne Luce
Dianne Luce, a literary scholar and co-founder of the Cormac McCarthy Society, returns to delve into McCarthy's play, The Sunset Limited. They explore the intense debate between a cynical professor and a hopeful ex-con, touching on themes of faith, despair, and the nature of existence. Dianne illustrates the work's unique format as both a play and philosophical dialogue. They discuss audience interpretations, the symbolic train motif, and McCarthy's comfort with ethical ambiguities, highlighting the play's powerful emotional stakes and its relevance in contemporary discussions.
01:17:45
Late-Period Rapid Creation
- The Sunset Limited began in 2005 and quickly became a compact, idea-driven two-man piece by 2006.
- McCarthy used intimate dramatic form to test suicide, faith, and meaning through extended dialogue.
Philosophical Duel In Two Characters
- The play frames two men as opposing worldviews: a rational atheist professor and an evangelical ex-con.
- Their encounter dramatizes competing answers to whether life holds meaning or whether suicide is rational.
Hybrid Form: Play And Novel
- The Sunset Limited sits between play and novel: McCarthy labeled it a 'novel in dramatic form.'
- It reads strongly on the page yet also succeeds staged as a focused Socratic dialogue without resolution.
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Intro
00:00 • 2min
Origins and First Productions of The Sunset Limited
02:28 • 2min
McCarthy's Late-Period Rapid Output
04:19 • 2min
Plot Overview: Two Men, One Debate
05:55 • 2min
Form: Play, Novel, or Socratic Dialogue?
08:16 • 2min
Performability and Reading Experience
10:44 • 1min
Audience Reactions and Moral Alignments
12:02 • 2min
Character Study: White's Misery and Hubris
14:16 • 4min
Character Study: Black's Faith and Creativity
18:20 • 6min
Conversational Prayer and Unmediated Faith
24:28 • 4min
Symbolism: The Sunset Limited and Western Motifs
27:59 • 3min
Ethical Ambiguities: Black's Overreach
31:04 • 1min
Race, Names, and Narrative Reversals
32:27 • 2min
McCarthy's Interest in Spiritual Experience
34:27 • 2min
Holding Contradictions: McCarthy's 'Gray' Thinking
36:47 • 3min
Comparative Themes: Apocalypse and Human Destructiveness
39:23 • 30sec
Audience Experience: Seeing the Premiere
39:53 • 4min
Realism vs. Metaphor: New York's Function
43:35 • 2min
Interpretations: Repetition, Purgatory, and Loops
45:59 • 2min
Film Adaptation: Casting and Directing Choices
48:09 • 5min
Staging Choices Across Productions
53:24 • 2min
Resonances with The Road and Other Works
55:36 • 2min
Dialogue Quality and Emotional Stakes
57:38 • 4min
Positioning the Play in McCarthy's Oeuvre
01:01:22 • 3min
Intimacy and Transparency in Sunset Limited
01:04:13 • 2min
Comparisons with Other Writers' Plays
01:05:58 • 2min
McCarthy's Dramatic Projects and Screen Work
01:08:25 • 1min
Favorite Characters and Emotional Impact
01:09:27 • 5min
Why the Play Still Matters
01:14:00 • 2min
Outro
01:16:02 • 1min
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The 58th episode brings back the excellent Dr. Dianne Luce to discuss with us McCarthy’s 2006 play The Sunset Limited (or is it a novel in dramatic form?). Produced first by the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago in May of 2006, it later went on to open in New York. Dianne Luce saw it in Chicago during that opening run and we’ve both seen the Tommy Lee Jones directed film version which aired on HBO in 2011. The play shows two men, a cynical, atheist white professor and an evangelical Black ex-con, who debate faith, whether life has meaning or consequence, and whether suicide is a viable option.
Returning guest Dianne Luce has appeared previously on Reading McCarthy with discussions of The Orchard Keeper, Suttree, and McCarthy’s legacy, among others. She is a founding member and past president of the Cormac McCarthy society. Together with Edwin Arnold she edited two seminal collections of essays on McCarthy’s work, Perspectives on Cormac McCarthy and A Cormac McCarthy Companion: The Border Trilogy. Additionally she is the author of Reading The World. Cormac McCarthy’s Tennessee Period, University of South Carolina Press, 2009, and Embracing Vocation: Embracing Vocation: Cormac McCarthy's Writing Life, 1959-1974, USC Press 2023. She is currently working on a second volume of Cormac McCarthy's Writing Life, covering 1974-1985.
Thanks to Thomas Frye, who composed, performed, and produced the music for READING MCCARTHY. Film trailer for The Sunset Limited, directed by Tommy Lee Jones, 2011.
The views of the host and his guests do not necessarily reflect the views of their home institutions or the Cormac McCarthy Society, although in our hearts we hope they’ll follow along. Download and follow us on Apple, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you’re agreeable it’ll help us if you provide favorable reviews on these platforms. To contact us, please reach out to readingmccarthy(@)gmail.com.
Starting in spring of 2023, the podcast began accepting minor sponsorship offers to offset the costs of the podcast. This may cause a mild disconnect in earlier podcasts where the host asks for patrons in lieu of sponsorships. But if we compare it to a very large and naked bald man in the middle of the desert who leads you to an extinct volcano to create gunpowder, it seems pretty minor...