The Theatre of Paula Vogel: Practice, Pedagogy, and Influences. Lee Brewer Jones. New York: Methuen Drama, 2023; Pp. 194. 

The Theatre of Paula Vogel: Practice, Pedagogy, and Influences. Lee Brewer Jones. New York: Methuen Drama, 2023; Pp. 194. 

Lee Brewer Jones’s monograph on Paula Vogel offers a comprehensive, largely admiring account of one of the most influential American playwrights and teachers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Structured chronologically and thematically, the book traces Vogel’s development from her early life and formative artistic influences through her emergence as a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and, finally, her enduring legacy as a mentor whose pedagogical reach has shaped contemporary American theatre. Jones’s study will be of particular interest to theatre historians, dramaturgs, and scholars of feminist, queer, and experimental performance, though it also raises questions about methodology, critical focus, and editorial cohesion. 

The opening chapter, “Early Life and Influences,” grounds Vogel’s dramaturgy in her biography, emphasizing how her upbringing shaped her theatrical worldview. Jones carefully details Vogel’s family history—her Jewish father’s abandonment, her Catholic mother’s complex influence, and her close relationship with her brothers—as foundational to her recurring themes of loss, survival, and fractured intimacy. Vogel’s coming out at seventeen and her deep connection to her gay brother Carl establish what Jones frames as an LGBTQ+ foundation that informs much of her work. This chapter also addresses Vogel’s early professional disappointments, particularly her time at Cornell University, where shifting faculty politics led to the rejection of her dissertation and what Vogel herself described as being “fired.” Jones characterizes this period as a “false start” (3), though the material reveals not failure but a nontraditional trajectory that resists the heteronormative, white, male model of theatrical success. Jones is particularly strong in his discussion of Vogel’s self-identified artistic “gods”: John Guare, María Irene Fornés, and Caryl Churchill. These figures serve not merely as influences but as lodestars for Vogel’s dramaturgical ethics: Guare’s Six Degrees of Separation and Fornés’s innovation (“No repeats!”) together illuminate Vogel’s commitment to defamiliarization, formal risk, and her use of negative empathy. This framework becomes central in Chapter 2, which examines Vogel’s developing voice through plays such as Desdemona: A Play about a Handkerchief, The Oldest Profession, and And Baby Makes Seven. Drawing on Brecht and Shklovsky, Jones persuasively shows how Vogel resists the comforts of positive empathy in favor of unsettling audiences into seeing, rather than merely recognizing, familiar narratives. 

The book’s third chapter, “Building an International Reputation,” marks a turning point with Vogel’s response to the AIDS crisis and the death of her brother Carl in 1988, with Jones’s analysis of The Baltimore Waltz among the book’s most compelling sections. By transforming AIDS into the fictional ATD (Acquired Toilet Disease), Vogel defamiliarizes both the illness and the cultural panic surrounding it, staging grief through denial, humor and imaginative excess. Jones deftly unpacks Vogel’s use of language as both concealment and revelation, though at times his analysis is diluted by extended references to external literary works—such as Hemingway’s “Soldier’s Home”—whose relevance to Vogel’s creative process is tenuous. While these intertexts may reflect critical reception rather than Vogel’s authorial intent, their prominence occasionally distracts from Vogel’s own dramaturgical strategies. Jones continues this chapter with discussions of Hot ‘n Throbbing and How I Learned to Drive, the latter of which earned Vogel the 1998 Pulitzer Prize. His account of Vogel’s willingness to revise Hot ‘n Throbbing—even after publication—underscores her belief that “the play, not the text, is the thing” (59). This philosophy culminates in How I Learned to Drive, which Jones situates as both a personal and cultural reckoning with trauma, memory, and power. The chapter convincingly positions the Pulitzer as a moment of long-delayed recognition while also gesturing to Vogel’s ambivalence about institutional success. 

Chapter 4, “The House of Paula Vogel,” shifts focus from playwright to pedagogue, arguing that Vogel’s influence is most visible in the extraordinary success of her students. Jones chronicles Vogel’s role in mentoring figures such as Lynn Nottage, Sarah Ruhl, Quiara Alegría Hudes, and Nilo Cruz and in creating initiatives like the 48-hour bake-off, which democratized playwriting and emphasized collective creation. Vogel’s assertion that her life’s work is “not about getting through the door alone; it’s about forming circles” (94) serves as a thesis for this chapter. However, the section suffers from noticeable repetition and uneven editing (including noticeable typos and errors), suggesting that the book would have benefited from more rigorous revision. 

The final chapters (5 and 6) extend Vogel’s legacy into the twenty-first century, highlighting Indecent, the Ubu Roi Bake-Off in response to the Trump presidency, and her pandemic-era “Bard at the Gate” readings centering marginalized artists. A concluding interview with Nottage reinforces the book’s central claim: that Vogel’s most enduring contribution may be her generosity as a mentor. The penultimate chapter, authored by Amy Muse, offers a comparative analysis of Vogel and Ruhl, productively contrasting Vogel’s sharper, more unsettling endings with Ruhl’s emphasis on enchantment and affect. While this chapter is insightful, its inclusion raises structural questions, as its sudden change in authorship and focus disrupts the book’s cohesion. 

Overall, Jones’s monograph makes a valuable contribution to theatre studies by offering a detailed, accessible account of Paula Vogel’s plays, pedagogy, and influence. Despite moments of analytical drift and editorial inconsistency, the book succeeds in situating Vogel within—and against—dominant theatrical traditions. I recommend it to scholars of contemporary American theatre, feminist and queer performance, and graduate students seeking to understand both Vogel’s work and her transformative role as a teacher. One might even read the book as a map for mentorship, or as a call to “practice more failure” (Halberstam) by resisting the linear, white, male, heteronormative model so dominant in American theatre—and turning instead to Vogel’s circular approach.