European Stages serves as an inclusive English-language journal, providing a detailed perspective on the unfolding narrative of contemporary European theatre since 1969. Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back European Stages 21, 2025 Volume Visit Journal Homepage Editor's Statement - European Stages Volume 21 Published: December 1, 2025 Download Article as PDF By Steve Earnest Image Credits: Article The Winter 2025 edition of European Stages features articles from England, Portugal, Germany, Poland, France and Romania. There is a fascinating mix of productions covered and an equally varied group of writers ranging from Marvin Carlson, one of America’s most respected theatre scholars to Amy Hamel, a university lecturer and former student of mine from Florida who appeared on Broadway and major regional theatres across the USA. It was amazing to publish this brilliant young woman’s first work, but Dr. Carlson had done me that favor many years ago in the 1990’s with one of my first articles, a (probably bad) review of Der Eismann Kommt at Deutsches Theater Berlin while I was completing my dissertation research on the Ernst Busch Schule. I know I tried very hard to be a good writer as Yvonne Shafer, one of my mentors and longtime contributors to Western European Stages , was instrumental in my submitting that review as well as helping me making the connections with the Ernst Busch Schule before that. Also included in the mix are long time contributors to European Stages like Kalina Stefanova and Philippa Wehle, both of whom covered important European festivals in Romania and France from Summer 2025. The Winter issue has generally included many works each year from the previous Summer, which allows readers to both reflect on past work but also to consider what possibilities the upcoming season may hold. The issue also features an article from first time European Stages contributor, Dr. Timothy Koch, a former colleague of mine at Coastal Carolina University now living in Portugal. Tim has a strong sense for European production, having taken numerous musical groups to Europe over his distinguished career. Savas Patsalidis also contributes a work on a the prestigious Almada festival in Portugal while Ion Tomus provides a glimpse into the Radu Stanca National Theatre in Romania and its collaboration with a Romanian University. The issue also looks at a few Polish productions in both Warsaw as well as Lublin, the city recently designated as the European Capital of Culture in 2029. Finally, I have included a review of Robert Wilson’s last realized work, Moby Dick at Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus in May 2025. Bob’s death in June created a void in our world that is not likely to be soon filled, and I was happy to attend the production with his co-director Ann-Christin Rommen. I think we will all be mourning Bob’s death for many years to come, but we will hope to see new works emerge that reveal his tremendous influence on world theatre. Wilson’s Moby Dick plays at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in late April/early May 2026 and opportunities to see Wilson’s work in the USA have traditionally been scarce. Personally, I am very happy that Marvin Carlson is continuing to make strong contributions to the journal that he founded in 1969. Marvin’s current article is particularly relevant as it covers Peer Gynt , the most recent work of the controversial yet brilliant Norwegian Director Vegard Vinge and his longstanding colleague Ida Müller. As we approach the vibrant European Summer festival season, it’s likely that some of the works mentioned in this article (particularly The Summit and Peer Gynt ) could end up in the lineup of the Theatertreffen this coming May. My trip is already booked! Steve Earnest and Ann-Christin Rommen at Moby Dick , Schauspiel Düsseldorf in May 2025 References References About the author(s) Steve Earnest is a Professor of Theatre at Coastal Carolina University . He was a Fulbright Scholar in Nanjing, China during the 2019 – 2020 academic year where he taught and directed works in Shakespeare and Musical Theatre. A member of SAG-AFTRA and AEA, he has worked professionally as an actor with Performance Riverside, The Burt Reynolds Theatre, The Jupiter Theatre, Candlelight Pavilion Dinner Theatre, The Colorado Shakespeare Festival, Birmingham Summerfest and the Riverside Theatre of Vero Beach, among others. Film credits include Bloody Homecoming , Suicide Note and Miami Vice . His professional directing credits include Big River , Singin’ in the Rain and Meet Me in St. Louis at the Palm Canyon Theatre in Palm Springs, Musicale at Whitehall 06 at the Flagler Museum in Palm Beach and Much Ado About Nothing with the Mountain Brook Shakespeare Festival. Numer ous publications include a book, The State Acting Academy of East Berlin , published in 1999 by Mellen Press, a book chapter in Performer Training, published by Harwood Press, and a number of articles and reviews in academic journals and periodicals including Theatre Journal, New Theatre Quarterly, Western European Stages, The Journal of Beckett Studies and Backstage West . He has taught Acting, Movement, Dance, and Theatre History/Literature at California State University, San Bernardino, the University of West Georgia , the University of Montevallo and Palm Beach Atlantic University. He holds a Ph.D. in Theatre from the University of Colorado, Boulder and an M.F.A. in Musical Theatre from the University of Miami, FL. European Stages European Stages, born from the merger of Western European Stages and Slavic and East European Performance in 2013, is a premier English-language resource offering a comprehensive view of contemporary theatre across the European continent. With roots dating back to 1969, the journal has chronicled the dynamic evolution of Western and Eastern European theatrical spheres. It features in-depth analyses, interviews with leading artists, and detailed reports on major European theatre festivals, capturing the essence of a transformative era marked by influential directors, actors, and innovative changes in theatre design and technology. European Stages is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Theatre in Poland, Fall 2025 Editor's Statement - European Stages Volume 21 Robert Wilson’s Moby Dick at Schauspielhaus Düsseldorf, Summer 2025 Dramas of Separation at Festival d’Avignon 19th Edition Polyphonies of the Present: The Pulse of the Almada Festival Summer 2025 in London, England The Tragic Ideal of Eternal Youth: Folk Myth on the Modern Stage International Theatre Festival of Sibiu 32nd Edition Review of Samuel Barber’s Vanessa by Ópera do Castelo Radu Afrim and his House Between the Blocks Report from Berlin Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Arab Stages 16 Fall 2024 Volume Visit Journal Homepage Review: PLAYS OF ARABIC HERITAGE. By Hannah Khalil By Kari Barclay Published: November 1, 2024 Download Article as PDF PLAYS OF ARABIC HERITAGE. By Hannah Khalil. Edited by Chris White. London: Methuen Drama, 2022; pp. 280 + xvi. This collection features six plays by the Palestinian-Irish writer Hannah Khalil, framed with supporting material by editor Chris White and Khalil herself. The plays, Plan D, Scenes from 76* Years, A Negotiation, A Museum in Baghdad, Last of the Pearl Fishers, and Hakawatis , experiment with forms ranging from naturalistic drama to solo performance to kaleidoscopic vignettes to a radio play. One of a few collections of Arab diasporic drama by a single author, the book shows the playwright’s range and how her work has shifted based on changing contexts. Alongside recent collections of plays by Mona Mansour, Heather Raffo, and Yussef El Guindi, Hannah Khalil adds a thematically rich and carefully crafted contribution to an emerging canon of published works by MENA playwrights. Chris White’s introduction situates each of Khalil’s plays in the context of Khalil’s biography and frames her work as intersectional feminist interventions, presenting “women telling stories the way they want to, ‘free as birds’” (xvi). A forward by actor and producer Alia Alzougbi similarly connects Khalil’s work with matrilineal storytelling traditions across generations of Arab women. Indeed, Khalil’s work often present Arab women protagonists trying to navigate the specifically gendered dimensions of colonization, warfare, and sexual violence and to survive through storytelling. Khalil herself adds intros and outros to every play in the collection, revealing how she developed each play and how responses to one production often led to the next. The book’s first play, Plan D, depicts a family of farmers fleeing violence when military bombardment leaves a crater on their land. The title alludes to Plan Dalet, the Zionist military campaign of 1948 that displaced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and killed numerous others leading up to the founding of the state of Israel, but Khalil avoids temporal or geographic landmarks. Instead, she is deliberately “non-specific” and lets the play resonate with various audience experiences (4). As Khalil emphasizes, the play’s first production at London’s Tristan Bates Theatre led audience members, both Palestinians and others, to confide in her their stories of war and displacement. These stories emerging from Plan D led directly to Khalil’s next play, Scenes from 76* Years. This series of interwoven vignettes depicts—among other scenes—women defiantly picnicking in front of IDF soldiers, a man returning to see his pre-Nakba home and discover its new settler inhabitant, and an Israeli activist teenager telling her family about her decision to reject university and join in Palestinian struggle. Khalil fragments these stories, and some of the most poignant scenes are wordless stage pictures of Palestinians waiting at checkpoints. Past and present collide, as Palestinian life continues in stops and starts. The title’s “years” reference the time elapsed since 1948, and its asterisk indicates that artists should update its title to reflect the ongoing count of years passed since the Nakba. The next two plays in the collection, A Negotiation and A Museum in Baghdad, are companion pieces reflecting on museums and colonial plunder. The first is a short solo play about an Iraqi English woman who comes face-to-face with the Mask of Warka, one of the earliest representations of the human face, in the British Museum. As she experiences wonder and gratitude that Britain has kept it “safe,” her father feels sorrow that his daughter overlooks its expropriation. The daughter starts to wonder if she, like the mask, has been removed from her Iraqi context. With its focus and scale, the play is one of the strongest in the collection and uses one person’s encounter to unpack conflicting interpretations of “ tarath ” [sic]—heritage (122). A Museum in Baghdad continues this reflection by focusing on two figures—Gertrude Bell, a real-life British archaeologist involved in founding the Museum of Iraq in Baghdad in 1926, and Ghalia Hussein, a fictional Iraqi archeologist trying to reopen the museum in 2006 following looting during the Iraq War. Co-commissioned by the Royal Lyceum Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company, the play imaginatively collides timescales. Despite its high-stakes context, the play often leaves its characters’ tough decisions up to the flip of a coin tossed by Abu Zemen, a kind of Father Time figure. Although sometimes caught up in its ideas, the play spotlights women trying to preserve heritage as regimes rise and fall “through the hubris and mismanagement of men” (170). In Last of the Pearl Fishers, Khalil effectively uses the radio play format, which serves her writing style of quick jumps across space and time. Commissioned by BBC 4, this radio play is set in a community of wealthy ex-pats in Dubai, where Khalil grew up. The play follows Lillian, a white-collar English housewife, as she searches for her Filipina maid Celeste, who has disappeared without a trace. Khalil creates similar whodunnit structure to that found in Susan Glaspell’s 1916 classic Trifles, as gendered objects reveal clues to the mystery. However, instead of merely highlighting gendered solidarity, the play exposes Lillian’s inability to understand Celeste’s position. Through Lillian’s search, we witness the inequities of migrant labor in the UAE and the legal structures that uphold them. The final play, Hakawatis: The Women of the Arabian Nights, is a playful subversion of 1001 Nights. Leaving Scheherazade and King Shahryar offstage, the play imagines the king’s other would-be wives awaiting their execution and spinning stories to help Scheherazade hold Shahryar off. The play’s title refers to the Arab tradition of oral storytelling, and here women continue that tradition as a part of their survival. With stories ranging from dark to uproarious, Hakawatis is excellent, and it self-referentially comments on theater as a space of hope for women to build community, escape violence, and fight for their communities. Demonstrating range in form and content as well as insights from the playwright, Hannah Khalil: Plays of Arabic Heritage offers a beautifully intimate reading experience where one gets glimpses into a playwright’s journey and her artistic decision-making. Foregrounding stories about Palestine in Plan D and Scenes from 76* Years, the collection offers much-needed representation to complement anthologies such as Stories Under Occupation and Inside/Outside: Six Plays from Palestine and the Diaspora . Meanwhile, Khalil’s work models coalitional thinking with other struggles in the Arab world and depicts women, like Khalil herself, trying to navigate injustice with humor, care, and a belief in power of artistic imagination. The book will be of great service to scholars and artists interested in Khalil’s work, Palestinian and MENA diasporic drama, and plays that use history to explore our unwieldy present. Article Bibliography, References & Endnotes References About The Author(s) Kari Barclay (they/them) is a writer, director, and researcher who serves as Assistant Professor of Theater at Oberlin College. Their scholarship on theater, sexuality, and politics has been published in Theatre Journal, Theatre Topics, and The Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, among other journals. Their book Directing Desire, out from Palgrave Macmillan in 2023, charts the history and politics of intimacy choreography and consent in contemporary U.S. theater. kari-barclay.com . Arab Stages Arab Stages is devoted to broadening international awareness and understanding of the theatre and performance cultures of the Arab-Islamic world and of its diaspora. The journal appears twice yearly in digital form by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center of New York and is a joint project of that Center and of the Arabic Theatre Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents An Interview with the Iraqi-born British playwright Hassan Abdulrazzak by Hadeel Abelhameed Review: GUERNICA, GAZA: VISIONS FROM THE CENTER OF THE EARTH. By Naomi Wallace and Ismail Khalidi Performance Review: The Tutor Review: OF KINGS AND CLOWNS: LEADERSHIP IN CONTEMPORARY EGYPTIAN THEATRE SINCE 1967 By Tiran Manucharyan. Review: PLAYS OF ARABIC HERITAGE. By Hannah Khalil Previous Next Attribution: Entries under this journal are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Arab Stages 17 Spring 2025 Volume Visit Journal Homepage ARTIFICIAL HEART. By Mohammad Basha and Firas Farrah. By Marina Johnson Published: May 12, 2025 Download Article as PDF REVIEW: ARTIFICIAL HEART. By Mohammad Basha and Firas Farrah. Directed by Mohammad Basha. The Body Ensemble with the support of Al Hakawati Theatre, Jerusalem. September 9 & December 12, 2025, Marina Johnson Artificial Heart : Thinking into the Future at Al Hakawati Theatre in Jerusalem مش رح اسمحلك تقتل حالك وانا بتفرج ! ناجي ! فكرة خالك عن عالم منزوع السلاح مش حلم. السيدة الأولى, قلب صناعي "I won’t let you kill yourself while I watch! Naji, your uncle’s idea of a world without weapons wasn’t just a dream." - First Lady: Artificial Heart The sound of computerized scanning and the rumbling of bass fills the room as the lights rise on a futuristic laboratory. An anatomical scan of a human rotates on the projection screens against the upstage back wall as green coding and programming data pass along the screen. The Professor, stationed center stage, manipulates screens invisible to the audience, moving in quick, sharp gestures. He is dressed in a silver futuristic tunic, and black slacks, with wires passing over his face, prompting the question of man or cyborg. Behind him is a translucent white and silver cylindrical portal, the kind one might associate with a transportation chamber or other liminal laboratory space, and to his left and right are a couch and two chairs. This stylized beginning made my heart race; I had not seen anything like it before in Palestine and I was eager to go on a journey into the past, present, and future. Artificial Heart (قلب صناعي) was directed by Mohammad Basha and premiered on August 24th, 2024 on stage at Al Hakawati, the Palestinian National Theatre (PNT) in Jerusalem. I watched the play twice, once at Al Kasaba Theatre in Ramallah on September 9th, 2024, and again at the PNT on December 12, 2024. Artificial Heart was written and staged in Arabic, but at the performance I watched in December, supertitles were projected, and many foreigners packed the balcony of the PNT to have the best view of the stage and supertitles simultaneously. The play unfolds across three plotlines, each exploring humanity's reliance on technology and the emotional consequences of this dependence. Each vignette represents a group of people–young people who grew up with technology and use it as an innate part of their lives, an older family who have technology thrust upon them, and a government that sees an opportunity to use technology to maintain power. The storytelling goes back and forth between the three threads, creating an interwoven narrative of a world that, in many ways, eerily mirrors our own. The first thread focuses on an aging couple, Abu Omar and Um Omar, grappling with their failing robot helper. Their humorous and poignant interactions with the robot reflect a society heavily dependent on technology. The couple’s dialogue reveals their nostalgia for simpler times and highlights their desire to reconnect with family, especially their absent son, Omar. Their relationship with the robot mirrors their struggles with memory, aging, and loss, serving as a microcosm of a broader human experience overshadowed by mechanization. By the end of the play, it is revealed that their son Omar, whom they repeatedly mention waiting for, does not exist. In fact, they were not allowed to have a child by the governmental regime which deemed their genes unworthy. This eugenicist act has haunted their lives as they dream of the son they were never allowed to have. The second narrative thread focuses on Sami, a social media influencer obsessed with views and fame. His girlfriend Reema breaks up with him because he is so wrapped up in the promises of a life made easier through technology and cannot take her desire for authentic emotional connection seriously. Sami's infatuation with technological solutions leads him to acquire the robot Sasha, modeled after Reema, as a substitute girlfriend. This relationship showcases the emotional void created by prioritizing efficiency and artificial substitutes over human intimacy. Over time, Sami realizes that Sasha will never seek to connect deeply with him the way that Reema had. Sasha’s inability to return affection in an emotionally connected way is the technological limitation that causes Sami to terminate his relationship with the robot. Sami hosting a live video for his followers with Sasha in the background; Photograph by Mutaz Qawasmi; Courtesy of The Body Ensemble. In the last, and most politically charged storyline, the President collaborates with the Professor to develop a robotic version of himself to perpetuate his rule. The project involves suppressing citizens’ emotional data and memories of trauma to keep order and prevent them from becoming aware of the world's problems. As the Professor conducts lab research, the First Lady seeks him out to share revelations about her traumatic past that, unbeknownst to him, intertwines with his own. The Professor, Naji, actually is the brother of the First Lady, sharing a past as a refugee that he does not remember due to the government-mandated pills which cause people to forget and feel good. The First Lady challenges the Professor to confront his complicity in a system that trades humanity for power. At first, he begs her: Please, I’ve lived my whole life like this. I don’t want to remember. If the memories are that painful, it’s a blessing that they erased them. بترجاك ، انا عشت حياتي كلها بهاي الطريقة ، ما بدي اتذكر ، اذا الذكريات مؤلمة ، هاد بيعني انهم ساعدوني لما محوها. But, as seen in the epigraph to this review, the First Lady reminds him of the ambitions of their uncle, who aspired to see a world without weapons. While not seen explicitly in the play, there is an implication that the President is not only perpetuating his rule with technology, but that he is using the technology itself as a weapon. The Professor reveals he has been having nightmares about his past, illustrating his body’s inability to forget, even if the pills erase the details from his conscious mind. Eventually, he realizes: The idea of a world without weapons wasn’t impossible. Maybe human nature can’t give up violence, but it can avoid turning it into the biggest and most profitable trade—the trade of death. Sure, memories are painful, but no one can force what I remember and what I don’t. Revenge... revenge. How can revenge turn a person into a monster, devouring everything around them? How can we be born innocent children and learn to hate? And hate creates even greater hate! Until it drags us into a spiral, speeding us toward our end. And now, your nightmares will begin, Mr. President. فكرة عالم بدون سلاح ما كانت مستحيلة ، يمكن الطبيعة البشرية ما بتقدر تتخلى عن العنف ، لكن بتقدر ما تحوله لأكبر واربح تجارة ، تجارة الموت. صحيح الذكريات مؤلمة لكن ما حدا بقدر يجبرني شو اتذكر وشو ما اتذكر. الانتقام…. الانتقام. كيف ممكن الانتقام يحول الانسان لوحش يلتهم كل اشي حواليه ... كيف ممكن ننولد اطفال أنقياء ونتعلم نكره ؟! ، والكره يخلق فينا كره أكبر! لحد ما يوصلنا لدوامة تسحبنا وتسرع فينا لنهايتنا، وهلا رح اتبلش كوابيسك انت سيادة الرئيس. The Professor ultimately sabotages the project to reclaim his own agency. At the end of the play, the Professor accesses the project and the images projected are of wars, destruction, weapons, and the technology company, Vita’s, logo. By deleting these files, he takes his own “revenge” here against a fascist system intent on controlling citizens and keeping the arms trade on top. His actions invite the audience to question the roles of memory, morality, and resistance in our lives. These threads, interconnected by themes of loss, humanity, and the ethical dilemmas of technological advancement, collectively critique humanity's surrender to artificial solutions at the expense of emotional authenticity and moral accountability. From the moment the play began, the projections designed by Hayat Laban left me completely engrossed. Paired with Ramzi Sheikh Qassim’s lighting and scenic design and Ivan Azazian’s sound, the technological world was brought to life in a way I had yet to see on stage. The stage was spare, with few physical set pieces present, yet the design and acting filled the world, leaving nothing to be desired. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Mohammad Basha perform as an actor on stage in plays such as لا غبار عليه ( No Dust , 2022) and صالح وبسمة ، فسيفساء القدس ( Salah and Basma: A Jerusalem Mosaic, 2023 ), so it was especially exciting to see a play that he had co-written and directed. In an interview with Basha on December 21, 2024, he was quick to tell me that, despite the fact that Artificial Heart asks how much technology “contributes to nourishing our humanity” or “stripping us of it,” creating the play would not have been possible without technology. Some of Basha’s team had to travel during the creative process, and Zoom and other online communication made collaboration across distance possible. While the play does not touch much on the utility of technology, perhaps because it is assumed that the audience already brings those experiences to the table, the goal of the play was never to vilify technology. Rather, the point of the play is to bring attention to the ways that people use technology to replace their own humanity and governments use it to target citizen populations in ways that are often unknown or unquestioned. This point was made clear through the use of double casting, as each actor took on roles that created a thought-provoking counterpoint between each character. Reem Telhami, most recently seen in the Netflix television series Mo , did not disappoint with her sophisticated depiction of a First Lady who has been thrust into a privileged position as the wife of the President but refuses to disconnect from her past as a refugee. Her demands for a better future contrasted with her portrayal of the eager and nostalgic Um Omar with grace. Firas Farrah who co-wrote the script with Basha, shined as Sami, the Professor, and the elderly parents’ robot. His journey as Sami was both funny and emotionally wrought, going from a man obsessed with how technology could improve his life to realizing that a life void of human desires and love is not the answer. His physically nuanced performance as the Professor, navigating screens both visible and invisible to the audience, stole the show. Fatima Abu Aloul played both Reema and Sasha. She was especially hilarious in her role as the robot, as she embodied a character who, despite trying to please Sami, continued to make choices that left him angry and the audience laughing. Nidal Al-Jubeh played both the President and Abu Omar, embodying two men on either side of a harmful relationship. Al-Jubeh’s stern and unflinching dedication as President to the world he is working to establish stood in stark contrast to the world of Abu Omar whose life has been left wanting due to the actions of the President. The irony of this double-casting decision allowed the audience to reflect on two men of potentially the same generation and how they have shaped, or been unable to shape, the realities around them. In a world currently saturated with conversations about artificial intelligence and the ways that different world governments use it to surveil their citizens, I expected Artificial Heart to tackle the proliferation and dangers of AI. However, after the performance I realized that “artificial” and “heart” were meant to stand in contrast with each other, asking the audience to reflect on what meaning these two words hold in our own lives. The play’s triptych format allows it to tackle its themes from multiple angles. Each story brings a unique perspective, from intimate domestic moments to larger societal commentary, creating a rich narrative experience. Artificial Heart is a dynamic and thought-provoking theatrical exploration of humanity’s evolving relationship with technology, delivering profound commentary on the collision of tradition, progress, and human fragility. References Basha, Mohammad and Firas Farrah. Artificial Heart. Unpublished script in both Arabic and English, 2024. Johnson, Marina, and Mohammad Basha. Interview about Artificial Heart . Personal, December 21, 2024. Program Note, The Body Ensemble. Artificial Heart , 2024. Article Bibliography, References & Endnotes References About The Author(s) Marina Johnson is a Ph.D. candidate in TAPS at Stanford University (M.F.A in Directing, University of Iowa). Her dissertation research focuses on Palestinian performance from 2015 to the present. Johnson is the co-host of Kunafa and Shay, a MENA theatre podcast produced by HowlRound Theatre Commons, and they are also a member of Silk Road Rising’s Polycultural Institute. Johnson’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Theatre/Practice , Arab Stages , Decolonizing Dramaturgy in a Global Context (Bloomsbury) , Milestones in Staging Contemporary Genders and Sexualities (Routledge), Women’s Innovations in Theatre, Dance, and Performance, Volume I: Performers (Bloomsbury). Prior to her Ph.D., she was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Beloit College for three years. Select recent directing credits include: The Wolves (Stanford) The Shroud Maker (International Voices Project), Shakespeare’s Sisters (Stanford), The Palestinian Youth Monologues (Stanford), Five Lesbians Eating a Quiche (Beloit College), and In the Next Room (Beloit College). www.marina-johnson.com Arab Stages Arab Stages is devoted to broadening international awareness and understanding of the theatre and performance cultures of the Arab-Islamic world and of its diaspora. The journal appears twice yearly in digital form by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center of New York and is a joint project of that Center and of the Arabic Theatre Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents O Lord! By Ali Abdel-Nabi Al-Zaidi Mothers Challenging the Divine: Ali Al-Zaidi’s Ya Rab! The 31st Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre. September 1-11, 2024. ARTIFICIAL HEART. By Mohammad Basha and Firas Farrah. LEILI & MAJNUN. Written and directed by Torange Yeghiazarian SHAHADAT (THE TESTIMONIES) Adapted by Fouad Teymour Review: TO THE GOOD PEOPLE OF GAZA: THEATRE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE Staging Revolutions and the Many Faces of Modernism: Performing Politics in Irish and Egyptian Theatre Previous Next Attribution: Entries under this journal are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Bernth Lindfors Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 33 2 Visit Journal Homepage Newly Discovered Biographical Sources on Ira Aldridge Bernth Lindfors By Published on April 30, 2021 Download Article as PDF The British Newspaper Archive continues to offer a fruitful research tool for scholars wishing to study reviews of performances by actors on the British stage. I used this remarkable resource extensively when preparing biographies of the famous Black performers Ira Aldridge and Samuel Morgan Smith, [1] and I go back to it from time to time whenever new microfilms of old papers from the nineteenth century are added to it in order to see if there are any reports or anecdotes about these two actors that I might have missed. Sure enough, I have found two documents that shed some new light on Aldridge, and I offer them here in tribute to Errol Hill’s pioneering research on black actors. The first of these accounts appeared in London’s Weekly Dispatch on February 10, 1828 as a contribution on “Metropolitan Oddities” focusing on “The African Roscius,” the name ironically bestowed upon Aldridge by the London Times in its racist review of his debut in the role of Oronooko at the Coburg Theatre on October 10, 1825. Aldridge had made his initial debut in London at age seventeen five months earlier in a condensed production of Othello at the smaller Royalty Theatre in the East End, performing under the pseudonym of Mr. Keene, a deliberately playful allusion to the surname of Edmund Kean, one of England’s greatest tragedians, famous for his portrayal of Othello. Aldridge kept this facetious stage name until the real Kean collapsed on stage while playing the Moor at Covent Garden Theatre on March 25, 1833, and managers called upon Aldridge to replace him in the same role in the same theatre two weeks later. He was then billed both honestly as Mr. Aldridge and dishonestly as “a Native of Senegal,” possibly a ploy to validate his identity as a true African performer. This charade led to a controversy so bitter that it kept Aldridge off the London stage for the next fifteen years. He had already spent eight years seeking to turn what was meant as a racial insult into a praise name, and he persisted in assuming this honorific title alluding to Roscius, a great Roman actor, for the remainder of his career. When he started appearing at the Royalty Theatre, advertisements described him as a “Gentleman of Colour from the New York Theatre,” [2] and press reports on his subsequent provincial tours spoke of him as having “attained considerable celebrity in America,” [3] a gross exaggeration. One playbill in Bristol went so far as to claim erroneously that he was “known throughout America by the appellation of the African Roscius, a performer of Colour, whose flattering reception at New York and throughout all the principal Theatres in America has induced him to visit England professionally.” [4] This was more media puffery. Later in 1826, when he was finding it difficult to secure engagements and had become nearly destitute, Trewman’s Exeter Flying Post and the Theatrical Observer; and Daily Bills of the Play actively sought to solicit funds that would enable him to return to America. [5] In these early years he was known to have moved to England from the New World, not directly from Africa. So the article in the Weekly Dispatch two and a half years later purported to clear up some of the confusion surrounding this unusual stranger. It may have been the first biographical article published on him in Britain and deserves to be remembered both for its errors as well as its truths. The author of this piece, identified only by his initials—W.L.R.—was William Leman Rede, the younger brother of Leman Thomas Rede, author of The Road to the Stage (1827). Both brothers enjoyed active careers in the theatre, William initially as a young actor and journalist who “speedily established himself in high favour as a critic on all matters connected with the drama. None better could distinguish between talent and pretension; none better adjust the intricate balance between the practiced charlatan and the unpractised man of promising merit.” [6] He had written a few early plays and novels and later became a very prolific playwright, specializing in popular farces and melodramas. At the time he wrote about Aldridge, he was only twenty-six years old, just six years older than Aldridge himself. Having seen so young an actor performed remarkably well in a variety of roles, Rede went to interview him in order to collect information on his background and previous experience. Here is his scoop on this surprising American African: THE AFRICAN ROSCIUS The London Stage has alternately presented every novelty that Europe can afford—we have had rope-dancers and wire-walkers, that performed all sorts of apparent impossibilities—we have had men-monkies, real dogs, horses, and elephants—even the less civilized quarters of the globe have supplied us with the phenomens [ sic ], and those lofty domes in which they profess to “hold the glass up” to nature, have been made the arena for tumblers. Novelty and merit are not twins, yet they are sometimes simultaneously produced, and the subject of my present article is one instance of this desirable conjunction. The visiters [ sic ] of the Coburg must all remember the genuine Oronooko [,] Gambia, &c., who appeared there about three years since—his late efforts have been made in the provinces, and, as it is said, he is shortly to appear at Covent Garden Theatre, a sketch of him and his adventures may prove acceptable. FREDERICK WILLIAM KEENE (the African Roscius) is the son of the Rev. W. Keene, who, though an African by birth, is a Protestant Minister in New York, and has the care of the souls of a large number of blacks; his wife (my hero’s mother) was a Creole, and the Roscius, I believe, the “first fruits” of their union, was born in New York (24th July 1807). His early days it would be difficult to describe, unless my readers were acquainted with the pastimes followed by the juvenile in the United States. At an early age, he shewed a predilection for the drama, and when about 15, joined some Gentlemen “of his own rank and complexion,” in a Theatrical scheme; they were a sort of a chess-board company—half black half white. The theatre was situated in Green-street, New York, and their first play was Richard the Third , the principal characters by four blacks, i.e. Duke of Gloster [ sic ], by the Roscius; King Henry , by Mr. Bates; Richmond , Mr. Hewlett; Buckingham , Mr. Jackson; Lady Anne (the fair Lady Anne)! by a negress , called Miss Sukey Stevens; and the Queen , by a brown fair one yclept Miss Dixon. These performers of colour were set off by the appearance of a white Tressel — (Mr. Lamb). The Roscius made a decided hit, and, after a few more trials, set out on a starring tour in Boston—where he played Othello , with a black Desdemona and a white Emilia . He then returned to New York and appeared at the Park-street Theatre as a star ; he ran through a round of characters in different parts of the United States, and then embarked for England—but, ere I follow him thither, another word of the Green-street Theatre. It was a desideratum in New York—where a large portion of the inhabitants are virtually, if not actually, excluded from the other playhouses on no plea but their colour; the prices were as follows—Boxes, 8s., (5s. English)—Pit, 4s.—Gallery, 2s. The company were most respectable—unlike some damsels of our drama—amid the black ladies there were no light characters. Mr. Mathews, in his piece of pleasantry, entitled “A Trip to America,” has described the performance of Hamlet at this theatre; now “I have been most accurate in my researches;” and finds that this story has only one fault; i.e.—that it is not true Hamlet was never performed at Green-street; it was, indeed, rehearsed for a Miss Johnson’s benefit, but never played. When Mathews visited the theatre, Pizarro was the play, and my hero was Rolla . One anecdote will suffice to show the genuine innocence (call it not ignorance) of the company. Fortune’s Frolic was got up, and Robin Roughhead (a Yorkshireman) played by a negro, who studied it from an Irishman, and went through the part with a fine Cork brogue: In this farce, there is one character who delivers some eight or ten lines—this part is marked in the cast as “a clown”—Messieurs of the somber hue, who had no notion of any clown but a pantomime one, such as they had seen at Price’s theatre, absolutely dressed this character a la Grimaldi! Some of the technical phrases of the drama, and portions of the texts, were perversely retained by them, though, in their mouths, they sounded paradoxical; for instance, Othello , bending over a Desdemona , as black as a crow, exclaimed— “Yet I’ll not shed her blood, nor scar That whiter skin of her’s than snow.” Let me return to the Roscius—he came to London, and drew crowded houses at the Coburg, where a piece, called The Negro’s Curse , was prepared for him by Milner. Since then he has been at Edinburgh, Glasgow, Bath, and Bristol—at Manchester and Liverpool seven times, and he is now in Birmingham. Whilst in Scotland he met Mr. C. Kemble, who, I am informed, undertook to procure him an opening at Covent-Garden. The strongest point of his acting is intense feeling—not violent, but deep—there is a pathos even in his colloquial tones peculiar and affecting. Our first meeting was in High Holborn, where he had collected a mob round him by his extravagant laughter at the braying of a donkey, an animal he had never seen in America— Othello and Zanga are his favourite parts—but Mungo is, perhaps, his chef-d’oeuvre —his style of humour is totally different from that of any other performer—his drunken scene is a thing by itself—the very personification of liberty run mad—and presents a lively image of what we might conceive to be the folly of the Spartan slaves, when they had their one day of unrestrained freedom, both in speech and diet. The African Roscius (notwithstanding his faults and mannerisms) is an actor of great natural powers; he practices no tricks to catch applause, and rather under than over acts. His talents, and the singular circumstances in which he stands in the profession he has chosen, are claims upon kindness. His line is a limited one; and, I trust, if any prejudice arises on his appearance, it will be one favourable to him. He is a stranger, untaught, unaided, totally friendless in this country, and, with nothing to rely on but his talent, which is of an order that practice in the metropolis will render great. Some of the biographical details given here are known to be accurate; for instance, Aldridge’s date of birth, his father’s profession, his own predilection for the drama at an early age, and his involvement in a multiracial “Theatrical scheme” in New York. But his father’s name was Daniel, not a name that began with a W, and Rede wrongly assumed that Aldridge was the firstborn child in his family (he had a brother, Joshua, born seven years earlier). [7] However, Rede’s article contains one fact that has never before been mentioned by others: that Aldridge’s mother was “a Creole.” In those days the term spanned a range of different meanings. According to the Oxford English Dictionary , a Creole could indicate someone white, black, or a person of mixed racial ancestry. A creole white was usually “a descendant of European settlers, born or naturalized in those colonies or regions [of the West Indies or America] and more or less modified in type by the climate and surroundings.” A creole negro was “a negro born in the West Indies or America, as distinguished from one freshly imported from Africa.” [8] Since the Manhattan Death Libers records that Aldridge’s mother Luranah, mistranscribed in this source as Lavinia, was born in Delaware and buried in the cemetery of the black church her husband served, theatre scholars may assume that she belonged in the latter category of creoles, but cannot be certain that she had no mixed blood. [9] After all, Aldridge himself, during his initial performances at the Royal Coburg, was often described as not very dark-skinned. The Times said “The gentleman is in complexion the colour of a new half-penny, barring the brightness.” [10] The British Press confidently declared “Mr. Keene is a Creole.” [11] And when he came back to London to appear at Covent Garden, there was a good deal of commentary on his color being light brown or dark olive, and of an “oily and expressive mulatto tint” which “seems to show that he has European blood in his veins.” [12] Rede had never been to New York, but he knew a little about the “African Theatre” where Aldridge had made his start as a professional actor because a year earlier he had watched the comedian Charles Mathews mock and mimic a ludicrously inept “African Tragedian” he claimed to have seen butcher the role of Hamlet there. This was one of the most memorable satirical character sketches he performed in his popular one-man show Trip to America , which opened at the English Opera House on March 25, 1824. Mathews’s African was not a caricature of Aldridge in performance. Rather, it was a parody of the acting style of James Hewlett, the principal actor at that theatre. But when Aldridge started performing at the Coburg, some theatergoers went there expecting to see the actor Mathews had famously lampooned. Rede knew better, having spoken with Aldridge, but for more details on his acting career, he had to rely on whatever Aldridge told him, some of which was more fanciful than factual. There has been some good research done on New York’s African Theatre in recent decades, including studies by Errol Hill, George Thompson, Shane White, and Marvin McAllister. [13] By comparing what these scholars have said with what Aldridge told Rede, contemporary scholars may gain a better understanding of how Aldridge chose to present himself to the public and how that public responded to what they saw in him. The African Theatre originally grew out of the African Grove, a cabaret or “public garden” intended for the enjoyment of New York City’s black community. Opened in the summer of 1821 by William Alexander Brown, a West Indian, it offered drinks, music, and dramatic entertainments to its patrons, who initially met at Brown’s Thomas Street home in Lower Manhattan. After neighbors complained about the noise, Brown moved thirteen blocks further north to his home at the corner of Bleeker and Mercer streets a few months later. However, the space offered seating for only fifty people and audiences proved thinner, so in November or December of 1821, Brown decided to move his troupe again, this time south to a tavern or hotel in Park Row facing City Hall Park and next door to the well-established Park Theatre. Unfortunately for Brown, Stephen Price, the business manager at the Park Theatre, did not like having such competitors on his doorstep, especially since they were now performing three times a week and drawing white as well as black audiences. He sent in hecklers to disrupt performances by throwing firecrackers onto the stage and even arranged for police to raid the theatre one night and arrest all the actors. In order to be released, the actors had to promise that they would never act Shakespeare again. This kind of harassment led Brown to lease an empty lot on the east side of Mercer Street near Broadway and build a proper playhouse with seating for hundreds that opened in mid-July 1822. (Greene Street, mentioned by Rede, sat one short block west of Mercer.) Unfortunately, the harassment resumed almost immediately. On August 10 th , a mob of white ruffians interrupted a performance, assaulted the actors, and vandalized the playhouse. Brown and his actors boldly fought back. Police arrested and charged eleven of the white rioters, some of them circus workers in the city, but the case against them was eventually dismissed. To make matters worse, a severe yellow fever epidemic had started to spread throughout the city, and by early October Brown’s theatre, now called the American Theatre, had to close. Brown took his players to Albany, where they performed for the rest of the year. Surviving playbills indicate that several performances were mounted at Brown’s new theatre in the spring and early summer of 1823, but by mid-July Brown was bankrupt. Several members of his troupe stayed together and gave scattered performances in 1824, but they had to find other venues for their entertainments. [14] What was Aldridge doing during these three years? At what point did he join the African Theatre company and take part in their performances? Theatre scholars cannot confirm this precisely. His name does not appear in any of the documents concerning the company, but he may have performed under a pseudonym since his father did not approve of such sinful behavior and wanted him to be a preacher rather than an actor. But statements made by others who knew him and also by Aldridge himself suggest that he was indeed attached to Brown’s theatre company for a time. Philip A. Bell, one of his classmates at the African Free School, recalled some years later that Aldridge left school in 1822 and joined Brown’s American Theatre in 1823 after seeing a Shakespeare performance there. [15] In an autobiography Aldridge published around 1848, he claimed that his first visit to a professional theatre, specifically the Park Theatre, had “fixed the great purpose of his life, and established the whole end and aim of his existence. He would be an actor.” [16] So he “fell to work and studied the part of Rolla, in the play Pizarro , and in that character he made ‘his first appearance on any stage.’ This was at a private theatre, where he was singularly successful, and all his fellow-performers were of his own complexion” [17] —in other words, Brown’s theatre. Brown’s troupe produced Pizarro at the Hampton Hotel next door to the Park Theatre in the winter or spring of 1822, but James Hewlett played Rolla (not Aldridge). However, a second performance of Pizarro staged by Brown’s company in Albany on December 19, 1823 may have given Aldridge the opportunity to replace Hewlett in that heroic role. [18] So Bell and Aldridge’s accounts may contain some elements of truth. Aldridge also reported that he had also once played a love-sick Ethiopian Romeo opposite an Ethiopian Juliet with the same supporting cast, but there remains no hard evidence in the extant literature on the African Theatre to support this claim. [19] How reliable was the information that Aldridge gave Rede? Richard III was among the first plays ever performed at the African Grove, the pleasure garden that Brown had created for the black community. Brown staged it three times in September and October 1821 and a fourth time in January 1822, but in at least two of the performances Hewlett played the leading role supported by Mr. Bates and Mr. Jackson but not by any of the other actors and actresses Rede names in his account. In fact, none of the female performers, except Miss Dixon who later appeared in The Poor Soldier , appear to have been employed by Brown, and it seems extremely unlikely that Aldridge (thirteen years old and still at school at that time), would have been recruited to play a major role in a Shakespearean play. However, he could have become an active member of the troupe while still young, for James McCune Smith, who also had gone to school with him, reported years later that upon graduating, Aldridge, “being of a roving disposition,” had briefly shipped out on a brig. “Shortly after his return home, Brown’s theater was opened, and Ira, with his brother Joshua, took to the stage; but their father, finding it out, took them away from the theater.” [20] It remains tempting to speculate that the two actors, listed as Hutchington and J. Hutchington, performing as Buckingham and Lord Stanley in at least one of the African Theatre’s productions of Richard III , might have been these two delinquent youths. Hutchington also earned a part as a Castilian Soldier later in the African Theatre’s first performance of Pizarro . [21] In any case, Aldridge subsequently defied his father and rejoined Brown’s troupe. The rest of what Aldridge told Rede about his career in the United States appears the kind of inflated fiction that P.T. Barnum famously called Humbug or Bunk. He had never performed before Charles Mathews at the African Theatre. In fact, Mathews had never attended a production there; instead, James Hewlett had performed privately for him in the spring of 1823, inspiring Mathews’s skit of an ignorant African Tragedian in Trip to America . Aldridge also never appeared as a star at the Park Theatre, nor is there any record of him playing Othello in Boston or running through a round of characters in different parts of the United States. Aldridge could tell funny stories about other black actors at Brown’s theatre, one of whom had imitated a Yorkshireman with an Irish brogue, and another who botched lines as Othello, but these too may have been little more than highly embellished anecdotes. But Rede’s recitation of Aldridge’s impressive string of previous appearances on stage on his provincial tours seems very accurate. Indeed, over a twenty-month period after leaving London in December 1825, Aldridge had performed not only at Brighton, Bristol, Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Liverpool, and Birmingham—the major cities Rede mentions—but in at least seventeen smaller towns and villages along the way. During this time, rumors circulated that he planned to appear at Drury Lane and Covent Garden in London, but in mid-1826 his nemesis Stephen Price had become lessee of Drury Lane and remained there for the next four seasons, depriving Aldridge of that opportunity. Charles Kemble ran Covent Garden as an actor-manager and proprietor, but from 1826 to 1829 the theatre struggled with serious financial difficulty, so he probably could not have afforded to take a risk on a black actor. Rede’s article suggests that he saw that this young actor had talent and merited public attention. The last paragraph of Rede’s report in which he describes watching Aldridge perform offers a shrewd, insightful assessment of his salient abilities and minor defects. Later eyewitnesses confirm Aldridge possessed “great natural powers” as a tragedian and comedian, and one who might with further practice become still greater. But Rede need not have pitied him for being “totally friendless in this country” because Aldridge was happily married to a British woman, and two British actors he had met in New York, Henry and James Wallack, had encouraged him and helped launch him in London. Plus, by this time Rede himself had become his good friend. [22] Actually, Rede had already become so good a friend that when Aldridge announced his decision to experiment as the lessee of a theatre in Coventry on March 3, 1826 (three weeks after the publication of Rede’s essay), he said he had invited Rede to serve as his stage manager. Their collaboration included acting as well as managing the motley crew of performers and musicians they hired. Their brave experiment in running a theatre lasted barely two months, for by the end of April and beginning of May each had moved on to performer elsewhere, Aldridge in Worcester, Rede in York. I found a second source of new biographical information on Aldridge in the Carlisle Journal of April 16, 1889. It comes in the form of an amusing eyewitness report by a gentleman who recalled having seen Aldridge perform a scene from Othello at his school forty-one years earlier: Looking last week over a collection of old play bills which was in the library of the late Mr. John Clarke Ferguson, I noticed one which referred to the performance of Ira Aldridge, “the African Roscius,” in the Theatre Royal at Carlisle in the year 1848. Ira Aldridge was a man of colour—a veritable “black man”—who could assume the part of Othello without the use of burnt cork, and I have often laughed at an incident that occurred during his visit to Carlisle. He came to our school to give some recitations. It was a hot summer’s evening, and the windows of the schoolroom, which looked upon the neighboring street, were thrown wide open for the purposes of ventilation, while the boys sat listening with rapt attention to the African Roscius while he gave some scenes from Othello . He was in the midst of his address to the Senate and describing the arts by which he had wooed and won the gentle Desdemona, when a noisy fellow in the street began a most terrible row by ringing a big bell and calling “Fresh herrings!” with a loud, hoarse voice. We tittered at the curious mixture of Shakespeare and costermonger; but Ira went manfully on. So did the fresh herring merchant. My story being done She gave me for my pains a world of sighs— continued the tragedian. “All alive! Just come in!” vociferated the costermonger. Ira hesitated a moment, but resumed— She swore, in faith, ‘twas strange, ‘twas passing strange, 'Twas pitiful, ‘twas wondrous pitiful, “Fresh herrings! Fresh herrings!” came booming through the window once more. The “dusky Moor,” already perspiring at every pore, with ill-concealed indignation made one final struggle— She wish’d she had not heard it— But the fresh herring man was noisier than ever— “All alive! Alive!” and the bell gave another loud clang. The blood of the African Roscius was now up. Unable longer to constrain himself he broke off in the middle of the sentence, rushed from the stage, and behind the wings we could hear him shouting—no longer the musical blank verse of the poet, but— “Stop that row, you rascal, or I’ll come and choke you with a mutton chop!” The coster was evidently taken aback for a moment by the apparition of the negro’s head through the open door; but he soon recovered his equilibrium and his voice, and the altercation which ensued helped—to the school, at least—give an amusing turn to the entertainment.[23] This prompted a response in the Carlisle Journal on 24 April the following week by another former schoolboy who remembered the same incident but also provided additional information on the black actor: A Kendal correspondent writes: — “Your notes on Ira Aldridge, the African Roscius, have interested me greatly as I knew that robustuous [sic] actor very well in Edinburgh many years ago when he played the part of Aaron, the Moor beloved by Tamora, in Titus Andronicus .[24] These remarks affirm that Aldridge made an indelible impression on audiences young and old. He could amuse schoolboys with a comical tirade and years later could remind them of the vigor with which he portrayed Aaron not as a villain but as a romantic hero. Such memories of Aldridge like the ones described in this essay, preserved in newspapers of the day, merit resurrecting and adding to the documentary record of his life and experiences. References [1] My biography of Aldridge was published in four volumes by the University of Rochester Press between 2011 and 2015. The one I wrote on Morgan Smith was published by Africa World Press in Trenton, NJ in 2018. [2] There was no theatre by that name in New York City. [3] Brighton Gazette , 15 December 1825. [4] Playbill held at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin. The same notice appeared in the Bristol Mercury , 20 January 1826. [5] Trewman’s Exeter Flying Post , August 31, 1826; Theatrical Observer; and Daily Bills of the Play , 2 September 1826. [6] “Recollections of Leman Rede,” New Monthly Magazine and Humorist , new series 80 (1847): 102-09. [7] Bernth Lindfors, Ira Aldridge: The Early Years ((Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2011), 21. [8] These definitions are drawn from The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), 601. [9] Lindfors, Ira Aldridge , 20. [10] London Times , 11 October 1825. [11] British Press , 11 October 1825. [12] English Chronicle , 11 April 1833; Morning Chronicle , 11 April 1833; Town Journal , 14 April 1833; the direct quotations are taken from the Globe and Traveller , 11 April 1833, and the Observer , 11 April 1833, respectively. [13] One of the first reliable accounts was given in Errol Hill’s Shakespeare in Sable: A History of Black Shakespearean Actors (1984). Then came A Documentary History of the African Theatre (1998) by George A. Thompson, Jr., a New York City librarian who tracked down 134 published and unpublished sources that told much of what was happening there. Next was Shane White’s Stories of Freedom in Black New York (2002) and Marvin McAllister’s White People Do Not Know How to Behave at Entertainments Designed for Ladies and Gentleman of Colour: William Brown’s African and American Theater (2003). Each provides insightful commentary on the significance of Brown’s theatre, White writing as a historian of black New York, McAllister as a theatre historian and performance theorist. [14] I have been following George Thompson’s chronology throughout this portion of the narrative. [15] Philip A. Bell, “Men We Have Known: Ira Aldridge (1867),” Elevator (San Francisco), 2, and reprinted in Ira Aldridge: The African Roscius , ed. Bernth Lindfors (Rochester: Rochester University Press, 2007), 49. [16] Memoir and Theatrical Career of Ira Aldridge, the African Roscius (London: Onwhyn, [1848]), and reprinted in Ira Aldridge: The African Roscius , ed. Bernth Lindfors (Rochester: Rochester University Press, 2007), 13. [17] Ira Aldridge: The African Roscius , ed. Bernth Lindfors (Rochester: Rochester University Press, 2007), 14. [18] H.P. Phelps, Players of a Century: A Record of the Albany Stager (Albany: Joseph McDonough, 1880), 56. [19] Memoir and Theatrical Career of Ira Aldridge , 14. [20] James McCune Smith, “Ira Aldridge,” Anglo-African Magazine , 2, no. 1 (January 1860), 27-32, and reprinted in Ira Aldridge: The African Roscius , ed. Bernth Lindfors (Rochester: Rochester University Press, 2007), 37-47. [21] See George A. Thompson, Jr., A Documentary History of the African Theatre (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1998), 70 and 228, for further details. [22] For further information on Aldridge’s theatrical activities in New York, London, and on his first tours of the British provinces, see Lindfors, Ira Aldridge and the books by Hill, Thompson, White, and McAllister cited in footnote 13. [23] Carlisle Journal , 16 April 1889. [24] An Edinburgh playbill shows that Aldridge performed as Aaron there on 24 July 1850. Footnotes About The Author(s) BERNTH LINDFORS Professor Emeritus, University of Texas at Austin Editorial Board: Guest Editors: Nicole Hodges Persley and Heather S. Nathans Guest Editorial Team for this issue: Mark Cosdon, Stephanie Engel, La Donna Forsgren, Javier Hurtado, Mia Levenson, Khalid Long, Derek Miller, Monica White Ndounou, Scot Reese Co-Editors: Naomi J. Stubbs and James F. Wilson Advisory Editor: David Savran Founding Editors: Vera Mowry Roberts and Walter Meserve Editorial Staff: Co-Managing Editor: Casey Berner Co-Managing Editor: Hui Peng Advisory Board: Michael Y. Bennett Kevin Byrne Tracey Elaine Chessum Bill Demastes Stuart Hecht Jorge Huerta Amy E. Hughes David Krasner Esther Kim Lee Kim Marra Ariel Nereson Beth Osborne Jordan Schildcrout Robert Vorlicky Maurya Wickstrom Stacy Wolf ISNN 2376-4236 Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Introduction to "Milestones in Black Theatre" Prologue to the Issue and a Thank-you to Errol Hill Earle Hyman and Frederick O’Neal: Ideals for the Embodiment of Artistic Truth Newly Discovered Biographical Sources on Ira Aldridge Subversive Inclusion: Ernie McClintock’s 127th Street Repertory Ensemble 1991: Original Broadway Production of Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston's Antimusical Mule Bone Is Presented A Documentary Milestone: Revisiting Black Theatre: The Making of a Movement A Return to 1987: Glenda Dickerson’s Black Feminist Intervention Dancing on the Slash: Choreographing a Life as a Black Feminist Artist/Scholar Playing the Dozens: Towards a Black Feminist Dramaturgy in the Work of Zora Neale Hurston Guadalís Del Carmen: Strategies for Hemispheric Liberation “Ògún Yè Mo Yè!” Pathways for institutionalizing Black Theater pedagogy and production at historically white universities Interviews and Afterviews on “Milestones in Black Theatre” Talking About a Revolutionary Praxis: A Conversation with Black Women Artist-Scholars in the Wake of COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter Tarell Alvin McCraney: Theater, Performance, and Collaboration. Sharrell D. Luckett, David Román, and Isaiah Matthew Wooden, eds. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2020; Pp. 252. Casting A Movement: The Welcome Table Initiative. Claire Syler and Daniel Banks, eds. New York: Routledge, 2019; Pp. 266. The Theatre of August Wilson. Alan Nadel. Metuen Drama Critical Companions Series. London; New York: Methuen Drama, Bloomsbury Collections, 2018; Pp. 224. Shakespeare in a Divided America: What His Plays Tell Us About Our Past and Future. James Shapiro. New York: Penguin Press, 2020. Pp. 221. The Theatre of Eugene O’Neill: American Modernism on the World Stage. Kurt Eisen. Methuen Drama Critical Companions Series. London: Methuen Drama, 2017; Pp 242 + xiv. Errol Hill Award Winners 1997-2020 Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Kristin Leahey with Joseph Ngo Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 34 2 Visit Journal Homepage The Dramaturgical Sensibility of Lauren Yee’s The Great Leap and Cambodian Rock Band Kristin Leahey with Joseph Ngo By Published on May 23, 2022 Download Article as PDF When Lauren Yee approaches a new play, she considers the historical events she wants to address in her work. Yee contemplates, “What are the moments and people that have been forgotten?” Yee gathers copious research and identifies the primary icons of these periods. She then disregards these surrogates of the times: her plays are not historical renderings of the lives of the famous or infamous, such as Mao Zedong or Pol Pot. Her plays are stories of the people whose narratives have often been omitted from the archive and whose lives have been marginalized. She probes histories of Asians and Asian Americans. As a writer, she acknowledges their communities by conceiving plays based on the lives of fictional individuals from the communities themselves. By reclaiming history, Yee constructs main characters in the form of common people who refuse to accept their plights and choose instead to challenge overwhelming obstacles in order to construct divergent futures for themselves and subsequent generations. Ultimately, through contemporary dialogue, Yee explores paradigms of largely forgotten pasts, such as the Tiananmen Square Massacre in The Great Leap and the Cambodian genocide in Cambodian Rock Band . In this article, I, one of Yee’s primary dramaturgs, will share the dramaturgical processes for the development, production, and audience and community engagement for two of her most produced works, which both premiered in 2018: The Great Leap and Cambodian Rock Band . Additionally, Joseph (Joe) Ngo, an actor with whom Yee collaborates, contributes thoughts in the form of an interview I conducted with him over the past several months. Ngo reflects on his dramaturgical contributions as an actor and Cambodian American in the new play development process. By performing an analysis of these plays and sharing specifics of their development trajectories, I provide access to the dramaturgy of one of our most influential twenty-first century writers, unpack why these works about Asians and Asian Americans are so widely produced at PWIs (primarily white institutions, i.e., US regional theatres and off-Broadway institutions), and describe how Yee’s work and playmaking processes add to the discourse on Asian American dramaturgies. Figure 1. Joseph Steven Yang, Linden Tailor, Bob Ari, and Keiko Green in the Denver Center for the Performing Arts and Seattle Rep co-production of The Great Leap (2018). Photo by AdamVisCom. The Great Leap In Yee’s works, fathers are often protagonists, which is true, too, of the The Great Leap . Set in 1989, The Great Leap follows Manford, a Chinese American high school student from San Francisco, as he plays in an exhibition game in Beijing against the Chinese men’s national basketball team. Over the course of the play, the audience discovers that Manford’s father Wen Chang—a devoted, ranking member of the Communist Party—is the Chinese team’s coach. Manford’s mother, Zhang Li, rebelled against the Party after the Cultural Revolution, and she miraculously defected to the United States early in her pregnancy. Wen Chang refused to join her at first and was subsequently unable to because of immigration laws in China and the US. Ultimately, Wen Chang defies the Party and protects his son, who has been unknowingly photographed with the student protestors in Tiananmen Square. He then allows Manford, a member of the University of San Francisco team, to take the last shot in the game, which enables the Americans to win, displeasing the Party. In his final monologue, delivered as a fax to his son, who has hopefully returned safely to California, Wen Chang states: “they are dealing with their most immediate threats. soon they will get to me. they suspect, i suppose, that i will not run.” [1] Wen Chang is the character in the play who experiences the greatest transformation and moves to action from stasis. As her dramaturg on the play from 2016 to its New York opening in June 2018 at the Atlantic Theatre Company, I discussed with Yee some of the variations of the title of the play in connection to who the protagonist of the play is: Manford at the Line , Manford at the Line or The Great Leap , and eventually, simply, The Great Leap , after the 2017 Denver Center for the Performing Arts Colorado New Play Summit Workshop. During the workshop, Wen Chang was played by Francis Jue who, like Ngo, serves as a consistent inspiration for Yee. With Jue, there was casual conversation about identifying the main character: Manford or Wen Chang. Manford was onstage throughout most of the play, and he traversed both of the play’s settings of the Bay Area and Beijing. But Manford didn’t change. Although he is the youngest character (and might be, therefore, most likely to change), his motivations are consistent: to discover his family, to reach his goals, and to honor basketball—the sport he loves. By contrast, Wen Chang renounces communism and looks to the US democracy as a place for his son to find a better life. He writes, “and if i have done my job properly, you are on your flight now, minor injuries, back to a country that will hopefully see you for the man you are. either way, my story ends here. and yours is still to begin.” [2] Wen Chang regrets the loss of his individualism, particularly the loss of his life with his family, for his belief and love of the Communist Party. In the end, retaining Manford’s name in the title didn’t make sense for either the rhythm or the meaning of the play, as he ultimately isn’t the protagonist. Additionally, Yee wanted to capitalize on the witticism of the title The Great Leap : it simultaneously alludes to the sport of basketball and the 1958–1962 economic and social campaign by the Communist Party to industrialize an agrarian economy, which led to famine, brutalization, and the deaths of 45 million people. Using The Great Leap as the title was a linguistically sophisticated, though controversial, play on words. In addition to the process of deciding the title, we practiced sensitive research in the form of primary source interviews. Yee and I conducted a number of anonymous interviews with Chinese expatriates living in Seattle and Denver. They informed our work, in terms of everyday life, competitive sports, and education in Communist China from the 1970s onward. One source said that a colleague, also Chinese and working in the US, asked them, after I initially contacted them, without their having made any public mention of working on the show, what they were doing working on a piece with this title. A different source stated that the closer you traveled to Beijing, the more you must omit about the protests to the point of pretending they never happened. One interviewee claimed that they knew the identity and narrative of the man in the “tank man” photo and that this was common knowledge in certain circles, but was unwilling to share more information. This image serves as the culminating moment in Yee’s play because is the surrogate for the Tiananmen Square Massacre for the West, while it remains unknown in much of Communist China. In her foundational work On Photography , Susan Sontag writes that “Photography has become one of the principal devices for experiencing something, for giving an appearance of participation.” [3] Yee further moves audiences to empathy, or a form of “participation” with an iconic photograph by transforming Wen Chang into “tank man.” In The Great Leap , audiences hear Wen Chang describe himself as the figure in the photo while he changes his clothes, and then they see him against the backdrop of the famous image. At this moment, every audience I have seen the play with across the country gasps. This final scene of Wen Chang’s journey is connected to grief, as it epitomizes the affect of much of Wen Chang’s journey in The Great Leap . In The Melancholy of Race , Anne Anlin Cheng writes about the transformative act of moving from “grief to grievance, from suffering injury to speaking out against that injury.” [4] Cheng describes a “racial grief” elicited from a a history of indifference, social injustice, and psychological or even physical injury. Applying theory from Freud’s “Mourning and Melancholia,” Cheng explores a type of grief—melancholy—which I argue Wen Chang exudes throughout the play. Melancholy is a condition of “endless self-impoverishment” or the tendency to remain in an interminable state of mourning. [5] Wen Chang’s melancholia is an example of racial abjection experienced by Asian Americans that Yee imprints on the characters of Wen Chang and Manford because they both live in a liminal space between belonging and being ostracized by the US. A scene that conveys Wen Chang’s immense grief is “letter 3/pick and roll: 1971.” Wen Chang writes: “and her absence was noted in my dossier, ensuring that i would never leave this country. every year i applied for a visa, and every year, like the movement of a clock: denied. i was the pick. and she was the roll. and together we could have done so much. but she could not be patient and i was too much so.” [6] In the co-world premiere productions in Denver and Seattle (at Seattle Repertory Theatre) in 2018, not seeing Zhang Li onstage made the character omnipresent and became a significant production choice. The everlasting emotional and geographic separation between the couple spurred Wen Chang’s grief and eventually this melancholy is compounded when he learns that Zhang Li died from cancer just before the beginning of the play. Both Manford and Wen Chang mourn her loss throughout the narrative and seek “grievance,” as Cheng defines it, at different points on their journeys. The characters are called to action; they express and enact a search for voice, justice, and change through “grievance,” or overcoming their grief. Manford fights to join the University of San Francisco team immediately after the funeral of his mother, creating an impetus to live through grief and demonstrate his grievance by making the team. He expresses his anger for the death of his mother through his system-defying actions. He’s angry at the US health care system for not providing proper care for his mother. He’s angry that because she was a poor immigrant, she was forced to take taxing, manual labor-intensive jobs to survive that ultimately accelerated her death. Wen Chang expresses his grievance through protest and joins the students in Tiananmen Square. Yee intentionally bookends The Great Leap with these men, first Manford and then Wen Chang, essentially wearing the same costume: a white button-down collar shirt and black pants. In their matching attire, Manford restlessly insists on joining the basketball team, and Wen Chang protests for change in Tiananmen Square. Off-Broadway and regional audiences around the country experienced The Great Leap as it became one of the most-produced plays in the US, and Yee became the second most-produced playwright in 2020. [7] While working at one of the PWIs that premiered the play—Seattle Rep (as the Director of New Works)—I heard what was attracting many theatres to the work: it has a cast of four or fewer; it is a comedy; it is a father-son story; it is about a historical period and creates an iconic image; it is extremely well-written; it is ostensibly linear with flashbacks that are easy to follow; and it includes a popular sport in it, but doesn’t require a set with a full court. Because of these features, the primarily white audiences and subscribers of these theatres, also found this play interesting. However, unsurprisingly, many were shocked by the vulgarity of the language (i.e., “all right, you masturbating horsefuckers: i know you’re tired. i know you’re still jetlagged from last night. i know you’d rather be jerking off into a nice hot bowl of noodles than sitting in traffic this early in the morning.”) [8] which theatres such as Seattle Rep and Denver Center for the Performing Arts anticipated by sharing content warnings in advance through pre-show emails, on the show’s webpage, and in the program. In my dramaturgy, I learned that an inspiration for the play was Larry Yee’s (Lauren Yee’s father) investment in basketball. In the early 1980s, Larry Yee played on a team representing San Francisco in these types of exhibition games throughout China. He noted that the Chinese players from these very competitive teams were extremely tall, often at least 7 feet. In the play, they become coach Wen Chang’s “Tall Trees.” [9] I added images of Larry Yee (who is 6 feet) to the lobby display. I attended all the previews in Denver and Seattle, and I led talkbacks in both cities, where the director and the entire company were completely different. In every location, diverse audiences of white, Asian American, and other people of color seemed enthralled by the play’s climatic game in Beijing. They seemed equally captivated by the narrative of Manford and Wen Chang finding each other on the court and a history that is still forbidden in part of the world. In Denver, watching the first readings, sitting next to Lauren Yee, hearing her laugh along with the audience, then experiencing their immediate standing ovation, the company knew we had created a unique work. Fig. 2. Brooke Ishibashi, Joe Ngo, Jane Lui, Raymond Lee and Abraham Kim in South Coast Repertory’s world premiere production of Cambodian Rock Band by Lauren Yee. Photo by Jordan Kubat/SCR. Cambodian Rock Band The band Dengue Fever and actor Joe Ngo brought a formidable dramaturgical voice to the development of Cambodian Rock Band , a 2015 commission from South Coast Repertory Theatre in Southern California. Yee partially developed the work at Seattle Repertory Theatre during a closed workshop, curated by me and performed with Ngo, where Yee learned that Ngo’s Cambodian parents survived the regime of the Khmer Rouge and the genocidal forced labor camps of the late 1970s. Ngo said in our interview: I think it came as [a] surprise to Lauren to discover that I was actually Cambodian-Chinese. When in the room, during the feedback session, I mentioned how much it meant to see that Lauren was aiming to tell a story so close to my family experience. For a play that Lauren had admittedly shelved for some time, it was as if in me she had found a match to light her dynamite, or perhaps vice versa and upon this discovery of my family history, Lauren had found a source. After that we headed to the Thai restaurant across the street for dinner, and [for] at least an hour … I shared my family stories… As someone who doesn’t believe in fate, it is rather difficult to swallow all the fantastical, it seems, coincidences that ended up making Cambodian Rock Band : the two looming the largest being Lauren and my meeting and the fact that Lauren realized that’d she wanted to have a band onstage and that I play the electric guitar. [10] Ngo describes his initial work as always aimed at authenticity in building the voices for the characters and advocating for that work beyond the page. Because he is one of Yee’s primary partners for Cambodian Rock Band , his personal family history added layers of anecdotal dramaturgy. He contributed family stories and song choices. For instance, his parents crossed the Thai border twice under extreme duress, which the character Chum describes. Ngo’s mother, who is based in Los Angeles, served as the language coach for the South Coast Repertory production. As the city Battambang is a setting in the play, Ngo suggested “Champa Battambang” in honor of his parents’ birthplace. While the cadence and style of Yee’s language is ultimately hers, it was his enactment of his father, uncles, and other Khmer community members that led Yee to solidify his portrayal of Chum. Ngo articulates, “In building the life journey of my character Chum, I consider this a transformation of grief to grievance; reflecting on the challenges, pain, loss, and grief my family endured and overcame and my subsequent embodiment of their grievance through my own performance.” [11] For the premiere at South Coast Rep in 2018, Yee, Ngo, the rest of the originating acting company, lauded director Chay Yew, and resident dramaturg and current Director of New Works Andy Knight thoroughly examined the historical context of the play’s world. In Cambodian Rock Band , Yee reminds audiences of the history of the genocide and how the US strategically ignored its existence. In A Race So Different: Performance and Law in Asian America, Joshua Takano Chambers-Letson describes this “imperial amnesia,” [12] which led the US government to ignore reports of the killing fields and refugee accounts of the death camps. Under the Nixon Administration, in March of 1969, the US attempted to bomb North Vietnamese trade routes in Cambodia, resulting in the deaths of 100,000 Cambodian civilians. This action further fueled pro-communist factions, such as the Khmer Rouge, in Cambodia. Following the devastating loss of the American War in Vietnam and hundreds of thousands of American lives, the US found no imperialistic value in Cambodia or interest in continued involvement in another Southeast Asian conflict. Western media largely neglected to cover the genocide, as the Watergate scandal dominated headlines. Yee informs audiences of this omitted history through flashbacks with Chum, the character that links the two historical worlds of the play and the band, and with monologues delivered by characters such as Duch, who have a wry sense of humor: genocide genocide genocide. boo.(DUCH clicks off the slides)you think of everything that came after, once the shit hit the fan. the khmer rouge, pol pot, and two million dead. [13] Thus far, Cambodian Rock Band has been produced by PWIs with predominantly white audiences. Minneapolis’ Jungle Theater, in collaboration with Theater Mu, the second largest Asian American theater in the country, will coproduce the play this June and July. Having performed the show more than a hundred times, Ngo described how shocked audiences seem by the genocide: It’s odd to say, but more often than not, it seemed as if audiences weren’t prepared to see the brutality of the Khmer Rouge enacted onstage (which, to be honest, is only half as bad as most of the cruelty documented) and so, the general feeling I so often was able to discern from audiences was one of disbelief. It was not surprising to me that whenever our cast participated in talkbacks, we’d receive fewer questions and more of what seemed like condolences for what had happened, expressions of helplessness, statements that affirmed that older audiences “just didn’t know this was happening, Cambodia was a blackzone,” refutations from other older (typically white) folks asserting that our country just chose to turn a blind eye to the damage that it caused…all of it in a restrained cacophony cloaked in civility. The expression of disbelief indicated to me that they felt some amount of shame or guilt of responsibility (whether acknowledged or not). [14] Ngo shares his family’s story through not only Yee’s play but also extensive audience outreach. For Cambodian Rock Band , Yee and her team of artists launched Herculean efforts to promote and encourage Cambodians and other Asian and Asian Americans to attend the show because of the work’s subject matter. Yee and the cast created and sold tee-shirts. Also, Yee attended as many of the shows as possible, facilitated community engagement events, hosted Asian American nights, worked with student groups from local colleges and universities, emceed music nights with members of the cast playing songs from the show’s Dengue Fever catalog, and participated in massive press campaigns. Ngo contends that the attraction for audiences with Cambodian Rock Band is the rock music, the interpretation of story connected to the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, and the intrigue of how the seemingly unrelated items are tied. What audiences—Asian and Asian American but truly all diverse audiences—receive is a deeper understanding of a culture, people, and history through this theatrical platform, which ends with a celebration of their humanity. Ngo says, “I believe we achieved something special when we had younger audiences at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and they, too, danced in the aisles, celebrated, and seemed to deeply absorb all the rawness of the characters, having survived their youth. And, with arms flailing and sweaty, they would then hug each other and cry, seeming to feel the immediate understanding of just having survived themselves.” [15] Dramaturgy is not a delicate art for a Lauren Yee play. When Yee writes, she mouths her characters’ words. She bangs on her computer keys with a ruthlessness. She becomes consumed by her subjects, reading an excess of texts, then putting them aside to structure the building blocks of her plays. With superpower speed, she writes 200 to 400 pages in a week and just as easily slashes pages upon pages of dialogue. She requires the same ferocity and fight in her collaborators, which Ngo and I can confirm. Audiences will often find a narrator in conflict with the past and a geopolitical power struggling to draw a map of their own future. She examines epic, world-building and (hopefully) change-for-the better historical moments, but always from the perspective of an ordinary person. References [1] Lauren Yee, The Great Leap (unpublished final manuscript, 2018), 112. [2] Ibid., 112. [3] Susan Sontag, On Photography (London: Penguin Classics, 2008), 7. [4] Anne Anlin Cheng, The Melancholy of Race: Psychoanalysis, Assimilation, and Hidden Grief (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 3. [5] Ibid., 8. [6] Ibid., 84. [7] Diep Tran, “The Top 10* Most-Produced Plays of the 2019-20 Season,” American Theatre Magazine , 18 September 2019, https://www.americantheatre.org/2019/09/18/the-top-10-most-produced-plays-of-the-2019-20-season/. [8] Yee, Great Leap , 68. [9] Ibid., 88. [10] Joseph Ngo, interview with Kristin Leahey, 3 January 2022. [11] Ibid. [12] Joshua Takano Chambers-Letson, A Race So Different: Performance and Law in Asian America (New York: New York University Press, 2013), 176. [13] Lauren Yee, Cambodian Rock Band (unpublished final manuscript, 2018), 7. [14] Ngo, interview with Kristen Leahey, 3 January 2022. [15] Ibid. Footnotes About The Author(s) Kristin Leahey served as the Director of New Works at Seattle Repertory Theatre, and prior to that post, as the Literary Manager at Washington D.C.’s Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, among other places. She has freelanced as an artist nationally and internationally. Her publications include articles in Theatre Topics , Theatre History , and Theatre Studies . Leahey is an Assistant Professor at Boston University. Joe Ngo is an Obie Award-winning actor, who has worked at South Coast Repertory, La Jolla Playhouse, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and off-Broadway at the Signature Theatre in New York City. As a writer, his work has been primarily geared toward solo performance and audio narratives with pieces such as Words, Words . Joe is a graduate of the University of Washington, Seattle’s MFA/PATP, and is based in Los Angeles. Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Embodied Reckonings: “Comfort Women,” Performance and Transpacific Redress The Interdisciplinary Theatre of Ping Chong: Exploring Curiosity and Otherness Love Dances: Loss and Mourning in Intercultural Collaboration Introduction to Asian American Dramaturgies Behind the Scenes of Asian American Theatre and Performance Studies On Young Jean Lee in Young Jean Lee's We're Gonna Die by Christine Mok Representation from Cambodia to America: Musical Dramaturgies in Lauren Yee’s Cambodian Rock Band The Dramaturgical Sensibility of Lauren Yee’s The Great Leap and Cambodian Rock Band Holding up a Lens to the Consortium of Asian American Theaters and Artists: A Photo Essay Theatre in Hawaiʻi: An “Illumination of the Fault Lines” of Asian American Theatre Randall Duk Kim: A Sojourn in the Embodiment of Words Reappropriation, Reparative Creativity, and Feeling Yellow in Generic Ensemble Company’s The Mikado: Reclaimed Dance Planets Dramaturgy of Deprivation (없다): An Invitation to Re-Imagine Ways We Depict Asian American and Adopted Narratives of Trauma Clubhouse: Stories of Empowered Uncanny Anomalies Off-Yellow Time vs Off-White Space: Activist Asian American Dramaturgy in Higher Education Asian American Dramaturgies in the Classroom: A Reflection Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Arab Stages 14 Spring 2023 Volume Visit Journal Homepage Review: Baba written by Denmo Ibrahim, directed by Hamid Dehghani By Suzi Elnaggar Published: May 1, 2023 Download Article as PDF Article Bibliography, References & Endnotes References About The Author(s) Arab Stages Arab Stages is devoted to broadening international awareness and understanding of the theatre and performance cultures of the Arab-Islamic world and of its diaspora. The journal appears twice yearly in digital form by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center of New York and is a joint project of that Center and of the Arabic Theatre Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Review: Mother Courage adapted and directed by Alison Shan Price Review of Theaters of Citizenship: Aesthetics and Politics of Avant-Garde Performance in Egypt written by Sonali Pahwa Review: Decolonizing Sarah: A Hurricane Play written and directed by Samer Al-Saber “Indigenous Avant-Gardes”: The Shiraz Arts Festival and Ritual Performance Theory in 1970s Iran Review: Baba written by Denmo Ibrahim, directed by Hamid Dehghani Review of MUKHRIJĀT AL-MASRAḤ AL-MIṢRĪ (1990-2010): DIRĀSA SĪMIYŪṬĪQĪYAH [Female Egyptian Directors (1990-2010): A Semiotic Study], written by Hadia Abd El-Fattah Review of Syrian Refugees, Applied Theater, Workshop Facilitation, and Stories: While They Were Waiting written by Fadi Skeiker Review: Layalina written by Martin Yousif Zebari, directed by Sivan Battat Up There by Wael Kadour, Introduction Review: Playwright Showcase, New Arab American Theater Works Two Giants of Egyptian Theatre: Conversations with Mohamed Abul-ʿEla El-Salamouny and Lenin El-Ramly Crossing Borders: A Theatre Practitioner’s Odyssey, An Interview with Hassan El Geretly On Writing Egypt from the Diaspora: An Interview with Adam Ashraf Elsayigh Performance Review: A FAMILY THAT HAS BEEN BLOCKED Performance Review: BETHLEHEM SITE-SPECIFIC THEATER FESTIVAL Performance Review: HOOTA. By Amer Hlehel Performance Review: LITTLE SYRIA Book Review: ACTING EGYPTIAN Book Review: MANSOUR, MONA. THE VAGRANT TRILOGY Previous Next Attribution:

Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Arab Stages 17 Spring 2025 Volume Visit Journal Homepage O Lord! By Ali Abdel-Nabi Al-Zaidi By Ali Abdel-Nabi Al-Zaidi, Amir Al-Azraki, Jeff Casey Published: May 12, 2025 Download Article as PDF Ya Rab! By Ali l-Zaidi, National Theatre, Baghdad, 2016. Printed with permission of the production staff O Lord! By Ali Abdel-Nabi Al-Zaidi Characters: Mother, in her fifties. Moses, in his sixties. A large valley surrounded by mountains on all sides, strange in its appearance, called the Holy Valley Tuwa. Mother enters, covering her body with an abaya, a black women's cloak, barefoot, carrying a large bag on her head. We hear her voice before she appears, speaking loudly on her mobile phone, then setting the bag aside . Mother ( Standing in the middle of the valley. ) Yes... I have arrived at the place. It seems terrifying. Tell all the mothers, I will not return without good news for them, cool water for their weary hearts. Yes, yes, I will call you later... ( She hangs up and surveys the valley. ) Everything here invokes fear: a valley of stone, my prayers made of stone, my fasts made of stone, and my supplications made of stone. ( She shouts. ) And I am a mother whose blood flowing in my soul has turned into stone! ( She raises her head towards the sky. ) I have come to you, O Lord, with a thousand tears and grievances in my heart. I blame you as if blaming my own soul. How can my soul not respond to my prayers?! I am your guest now, O Lord, and I have learned that the host hears even the breaths of his guests. And now what if I am both a guest and mother? Yes, a mother, alas for her! ( She shouts louder. ) O Lord... speak to me, as you spoke to Moses here in this valley. Respond to the heart of this mother who has lost her children one after another, heart by heart and laughter by laughter, only one son remaining, waiting for immigration and the sea's rafts of death... No third choice. ( Firmly. ) You can see, O Lord, that I have taken my sandals off out of respect just as I would in my own home, and I have come to your holy valley, Tuwa, knowing that you will speak to me. I know I am not a prophet, but the heart of a mother, as you know, equals a thousand prophets! The mothers have sent me to you, O Lord, and I am the most grief-stricken among them, the most insane. There must be a solution for the fate of our children, O Most Merciful of the Merciful! ( She screams. ) Shall I uncover my head? You will see how my hair has gone grey so that my children would grow up. But when they grew up, instead of their beloveds waiting for them, the rafts of hell waited for them in your seas, or explosions waited for them in the streets of madness. This killing, drowning, cannot continue. What fate is this that makes our children, who we protected when they were only tiny things, into fish food in the seas? What trifling fate is it that we wake up in the morning with nothing but the fragrance they left in their beds when they are gone? O Lord, we want them to grow up, not to die. I speak to you as the mother who has grieved the most, who buried her children without limbs, buried them in kilos, one kilo, two kilos, three! The biggest of them, I didn't find a single bone, so I slaughtered a lamb and buried its bones instead, and I visited its grave — I mean the lamb's bones, O Lord. What can I do? There is only one son left, and I want him to live and love and grow up and be buried whole. ( Takes out papers from her bag. ) O Lord! Where are you? These are the signatures of the mothers... look at them. I didn't forge a single signature. Thousands of signatures, whatever threshold we were supposed to meet to stop this, we have never had enough signatures, O Forgiving One. You must find a solution. ( Firmly: ) I will now say something important. ( She speaks forcefully. ) In my name and in the name of all mothers, we will give you a deadline, O Lord. You have twenty-four hours to command “it shall be so” and it will be, or we will declare a strike from praying and fasting. ( She shouts. ) Yes, that's what we have decided, we will strike from prayer and fasting, O Lord, and no mother will lift her hands in prayer to you after today, oh, closer to us than our own veins. Our conditions are clear... stop the killing that devours our children and stop their emigration away from our embrace. They leave our homes and don’t return while they are still in the prime of life dreaming of a spring that won’t come. ( Loudly :) We mothers want our children to reach at least fifty years of age. Fifty years... is that difficult for you, O Most Merciful of the Merciful? We do not ask for the impossible, and after that, do as you please. ( Madly :) Strange! ( She shouts: ) Aren’t You capable of everything as You say? Do something, O Lord, for I am in your holy valley, Tuwa. ( She cries. ) O Lord, O Lord, can you hear me, O Lord, my Lord, O Creator of the heavens and the earth, where are you? O Lord... Moses ( Enters, leaning on a staff, wearing old clothes. ) Don't shout. Enough, woman. What do you want? Mother ( Surprised. ) Are you... Are you... Are you God? Moses I seek forgiveness from Allah. Mother I thought you were Him. Moses You must leave the Valley of Tuwa. Mother What concern is it of yours? I took off my shoes and entered the valley. Moses You don’t have the right to enter… Mother It isn’t your right to give. Moses Silence is the master of this place. This is a sacred valley, only those permitted by the Most Merciful may enter! Mother I have waited my whole life for permission. Moses Then you must return to your home. Mother I won't return until God speaks to me. Moses He will not speak to anyone. Mother It's none of your concern. It's my Lord. Moses He has spoken to no one here except me. Mother Except you?! And who are you? Moses Moses. Mother And who is Moses? Moses ( Assertively. ) The Prophet! Mother ( In disbelief .) Prophet Moses?! You?! Moses I have lived in this sacred valley for a long time. Mother You live here? It's unbelievable. Prophet Moses living in a valley and leaving paradise? Moses This is my paradise, which God planted with the sweetness of His words, and suffused with the faint odor of His presence, spreading peace and love throughout. Mother It can't be. How can I meet a prophet who lived in a distant time? Moses Before God, it is all one time... A time where nothing exists except mercy, O mother. Mother O mother? And you know me too? Moses Yes, I know you... And I have been sent to negotiate with you. Mother Who sent you? Moses The Almighty God! Mother God? Negotiating with me? But I didn't ask for a prophet... I want only God to hear the prayers of mothers, and I am authorized by them... That's all. Moses You're a mother wearing the cloak of a madwoman. Mother Madness, O Moses... The killing of our children in the prime of their life. Moses You have the right to turn into a madwoman, but you have no right to incite mothers to madness. Mother ( Shouting. ) O Lord... I didn't ask for a prophet. I wanted You, the All-Hearing. Moses Be careful... The valley is monitored by cameras. Mother Cameras in the valley? ( Looking around. ) O Lord, I am a mother who came to this place with all her sincerity and devotion, with all her wails and mourning. Moses That's enough... You must stop immediately along with all the women striking from their prayers and fasting. Mother ( Firmly. ) We will proclaim our strike until our demands are met. Moses It's not right... You must seek God’s forgiveness. Mother ( Yelling at him .) Is it right that the blood of our loved ones is so cheap?! Moses And how can a creature stop loving their Creator who gave them everything?! Mother We love God more when we strike from prayer and fasting! Moses This is rebellion, not love. Mother God has given us the right to rebel in order to live with honor! Moses I take it as a conspiracy to overthrow... Mother ( Interrupting. ) I recognize that you are a prophet, but you have no right to stand between us and God. Moses ( Yelling at her. ) I just want to understand... What do you want? Mother Mercy! Moses He is the Most Merciful of the merciful. Mother I know... But not in our homeland. Moses His mercy is everywhere. Mother Where is it? Where? ( Firmly .) I’m in a hurry. Listen, O Prophet... Twenty-four hours is the deadline we gave to God, and then we declare our general strike. Moses Twenty-four hours? It's the worshipers' deadline for the worshiped. It's as if I live in the age of myths or hear a fable. ( Quietly. ) O mother... God cannot be threatened. Mother You understand it as a prophet as you wish, and we understand it as mothers as we wish... ( Her mobile phone rings, she answers. ) Yes, yes... What do you want? I'm still in the place. I'm negotiating. With whom? With the Prophet Moses. What's wrong with you? Yes, he's the prophet... God sent him to negotiate with me. ( Shouting. ) Don’t laugh, and leave your questioning now, your job is just to monitor comments on the mothers’ strike page on Facebook. Respond to all of the comments , do you understand?! ( She hangs up. To Moses :) Mothers can’t wait any longer. Moses The Mothers' Facebook page? What a mockery is this! This could evolve into a military coup. You don't understand what you're doing. This is an invitation to return to paganism or idol worship, like Pharaoh who said, "I am your supreme lord." Mother (Smiling.) Do demands for rights always turn into rebellion? Moses This is a dangerous development that could lead to the extinction of mothers from the Earth forever. Mother We will become extinct as long as the earth consumes our children every moment. Moses (Exclaims.) O God... Mother (Shouting.) Bags, bags, bags... Bags, O Moses! Nothing but luggage leaves with our children. Nothing remains here but their toys, their clothes, and the scribbles they left on our walls before they departed. (As if reading from a wall:) "Memory of my mother, father, siblings, and me on Eid." "The rose's fate is to wither, and our home's memories never fade." Moses (Raising his head.) How can I negotiate with all this pain? A mother plastered with memories of a home reduced to walls. (Strikes the ground with his staff.) Demands are rejected, O mother. Negotiations are over; you must leave from here. Mother Rejected? What's wrong with you? Cruelty doesn’t enter the heart of a prophet, as they say. Moses My heart contains nothing but purity. Mother (Looking at the staff.) Then try doing something with your staff, Moses. Moses My staff? It works by the will of God. Mother Tell it to split the earth in half... one half for murderers to live in, and the other half for us to live peacefully with our children. Moses (Points to the staff.) It seems to be out of commission right now. It always seems to need a Pharaoh. Mother ( Mockingly :) Even your staff has turned into scrap, O prophet! Moses I told you it works by the power of the one God, not by my power. Mother Try again... Chaos must stop in my homeland. Moses Rather, mothers must stop this chaos. Mother (shouting) Youbooee ! [i] Is there anyone who lives in peace and has never said "God is Great" [ii] ? What is happening, Moses? Say something. We are mothers who have nothing but the refrain "God is Great" since our children were born and our souls are longing for our children. What have we done to deserve all this hell? Moses Since Adam's soul was placed on this earth, that has been the question. Mother And no one answered it. Moses I object to the idea of a strike. Mother Did God send you to negotiate with me or to object? Moses The relationship with God is supposed to be without conditions and above assessment. . Mother We feel that God has lifted His hand from this land, turning it into hell. Moses Hell... It is a burning hospital to treat the disease afflicting all of you! Mother We will scream, refuse, and protest against this hell... Moses The sea will swallow you as it swallowed... Mother (Interrupting angrily.) Hasn't the sea swallowed us already, Moses? Haven't you seen or heard? Even the fish of the seas wept for them and were more compassionate and warmer than this homeland! We did not ask God for the impossible; we want our children to warmly sleep in our arms and dream dreams as innocent as they are. Moses (Painfully.) And I too... my mother found no place gentler than the sea to place me in. [iii] Mother ( Takes out a large mortar, grinding with it. ) Our children come out of our wombs and their heads are burning white... their hair all white, white, white... Do you understand? All of us have become insane in this country, a big hospital with nothing but mothers mad about their children. (Stops pounding with the mortar. Shouting :) Look at our misery, look at our wretched faces, O prophet... (Puts on one of the cloaks and performs the role of Mother 2. A group of people appears, bringing a coffin and exiting. Mother 2 looks crazy, sitting at a coffin with her son's remains, Moses is watching) Mother 2 (Crazily, ululating, laughing, dancing, approaching the coffin.) Finally, my eye, your mother told them you would come back, my son, and no one believed this crazy woman. Even the streets complained about her feet. [iv] (Screams : ) Come and watch my son return to my arms in the clothes of his wedding. (Ululates.) "Congratulations on your wedding, O son," they thought I was crazy, crazy, and now he returns to my soul... (Takes out a red dress from the sack, wears it over her clothes.) I vowed that when my son returns to my arms, I will wear a red dress the color of his blood, "Sweet, very sweet, amazing." (Recovers.) They brought his shirt with fake blood stains, and they said, “We found this on the edge of the sea.” I curse every sailor in the universe who stole my son's laugh... (Ululating, dancing around the coffin, then stops.) They finally brought you. ( Firmly with the coffin. ) Come on, wake up from your sleep. Be a man and rise. Rise and embrace your mother instead of this meaningless pampering. I will give you a new shirt without a single drop of blood. ( Shouting. ) They brought your shirt without your perfume, my life! ( A group of people appears, lifting the coffin and exiting. ) Where are you taking it? Wait! ( Shouting. ) They brought your shirt with nothing but sea salt, my soul... Congratulations on your wedding, my beloved... Here's joy, and another joy... ( She laughs and dances wildly . She stops performing the role of Mother 2 and takes off the red robe.) Mother Hah... What do you think? Moses Death is the norm of life... In your homeland there is nothing worth living a long life for, there is nothing but tears. Mother It's beyond our control, O Prophet, and it is God who destined us to be in this homeland. Moses I understand, but striking from prayer and fasting is rebellion against God's authority in this world. Mother I don't understand these terms, I don't know their meanings. I'm just a mother like all mothers, wanting to warm myself with the breath of my youngest child. Moses Beware, O mother, beware, for this place is monitored with cameras by Him, the Almighty. Beware... “And when We said to the angels, ‘Prostrate before Adam’; so they prostrated, except for Iblees. He refused and was arrogant and became of the disbelievers.” [v] Mother Ask this land where we have been prostrated our entire lives … Yet in the end, we were expelled from Paradise because we prostrated to God alone! Moses “We have certainly created humankind into hardship.” [vi] God has said so. Mother ( Smiling. ) Why, why in hardship? Moses ( Exclaiming. ) The dust of your streets is kneaded with pain. Mother No human has lived on this earth in such hardship except us! What did we do to deserve this? Is there a solution, O Prophet? Say something, do not remain silent... ( Takes out her mobile phone, presses a button to show Moses a video .) Look, look at this tragedy... Look. ( Sounds of mothers screaming, mourning .) Did you see, O Prophet? Moses I did. ( Confused. ) Yes, I did. ( Withdraws. ) Oh... What is happening here? How can I be a reformer when all I possess is a staff abandoned by life and consumed by time? And this land, this homeland... needs a new miracle, one as big as the children’s laughter that has stopped, awaiting an all-clear signal that never comes. How can I sow hope in a land where nothing grows but graves? Lord... I found people here living in a vast graveyard they call a country. I am perplexed, or a bewildered Prophet who doesn't know what to do? How does one negotiate this grief in the guise of a mother? How? Mother You do not know what has happened to us! Moses ( Shouting at her. ) All the women of the earth will be punished because of your thoughts, and Paradise will not be under their feet. [vii] Mother We do not want Paradise under our feet... Let it be wherever it is, just let our children live their lives with their mothers. They are our flowers. Have you heard of a Paradise without flowers? Moses And who are you to speak for the mothers of your homeland? Mother Me? Wait a moment, O Moses, wait. I will show you a special permission of those mothers... ( Opens a large bag, takes out a large collection of women's cloaks. ) They sent their cloaks with me so that Allah might see them, poor women. ( Shouts while tossing the cloaks. ) This one and this one and this one and this one and this one and this one and this one... I will spread them here in the valley. ( Holds a cloak. ) This cloak belongs to Abdullah’s mother. Abdullah never slept except in his mother's arms. He slept until he was killed by the shell. ( Holds another cloak. ) And this cloak belongs to Saeed’s mother. [viii] Saeed was never happy. He lived with his mother in a clay room, and when his body was torn apart, his mother found no grave to shelter what remained of him. ( Holds another cloak. ) And this cloak belongs to Salem’s mother, the sanest mother in our city. They brought her son’s head to her, and this wise woman turned into the craziest woman in our city. ( Points to another cloak. ) And this one belongs to Jaber’s mother. O poor son, he left his mother's embrace to sleep in the embrace of the sea. And this one belongs to Ahmed’s mother, and this one belongs to Ali’s mother, and this one belongs to... Look, ( Shouts :) these are mothers in the form of cloaks, each cloak carrying the scent of their children who were torn apart by explosives here and suicide belts there. Moses Who is this mother, O Lord? There is nothing in her soul but sorrow, and I have turned from a prophet into a spectator who possesses nothing but tears and questions. I am all Yours, O Lord... Please grant me the ability to answer even one of her questions. ( Pauses, then pulls himself together. ) O mother... I cannot understand what prayer and fasting have to do with what has happened to you. Mother No one listens to the cries of our tears... We have found no one to protest against except God... Perhaps He will send rain to extinguish the fire in our hearts, O Prophet, and stop this farce. Moses God is not a party to your conflict. For your people, killing is a picnic adorned with blood and hollowed words, creating a thousand justifications in your minds. God has nothing to do with this. Mother God created the killers! Moses And He created you too. Mother He shouldn't have created those monsters and made them live with gentle souls. Moses There must be contradictions in creation... There must be hungry and satiated, there must be killer and slain. Mother Has killing not been chasing us for a thousand years, O Prophet? Moses ( Yelling at her. ) I told you, death is the norm of life. Mother ( Yelling back. ) Death is a norm, but not killing, not slaughter, not burning, not drowning. Death is a norm, but separating heads from bodies is not a norm. Moses ( Withdraws alone, looks at the staff, speaks to it in a whisper. ) Do something, please, anything. One movement from you might make these mothers reconsider their strike. What's wrong with you? ( Stops, raises his head. ) O Lord... Tell the staff to do something according to Your will and let it be anything, stopping killing for one day, or one hour, or one minute. I implore You. O staff... No use... ( Firmly with the mother. ) Return, O mother, to your homes before the Almighty swallows you in the land of this valley. Mother I will not return until I take an oath from God that there will be no more emigration or slaughtering of our children from today onwards! Moses I am here to negotiate with you. Mother Our conditions are clear. Moses ( Raising his head, shouting. ) O Lord... I can’t bear the words of the people of the earth. O Lord, I am overwhelmed by the fire that spews from this mother's mouth. O Lord... Could it be that You created life only for it to be a knife prepared to slaughter this world? Could it be that You destined sorrow to prevail over joy and reduced all colors to just one dark hue? I have long known that Your throne, glorified be You, trembles for the cry of a single orphan... What now makes it completely silent in the face of an orphaned homeland? ( Shyly. ) Glory be to You, we have no knowledge except what You have taught us. Mother Silence... Nothing but silence. Moses Perhaps your hands can silently ask for something. Mother ( Gesturing with her hands. ) My hands are tired, O Moses! Moses Your stubbornness, O mother, will ensure that your prayers are never answered by God. Mother When were they ever answered before that they should be answered now? When? I forget my hands raised to the sky for hours, until they ache, and pigeons build their nests in the comfort of my palms. I forget my mouth for weeks as it pleads to keep my children safe from slaughter, and I forget my tears for years as they flow, hoping they would be dried by just one word from Him. ( She yells. ) Tell me, what should I do for God to answer my prayers? Moses Job endured afflictions for many years. [ix] Mother ( Shouting .) And we endure a thousand calamities while He is the Most Merciful of the Merciful! Moses Jonah lived, prayed, and fasted inside the belly of a whale. Mother It means nothing before great whales that have devoured all our young. Moses Jesus was crucified in the most horrible manner. Mother Every day, our streets are a ceremony of crucifixion for our loved ones in the most horrible manner! Moses And Jacob, whose eyes turned white from grief? Mother All mothers' eyes have turned blind, and their hearts and souls have turned gray together. Moses And the well of Yusuf... Mother ( Laughs. ) Much easier than this darkness. Moses O mother, I cannot comprehend the fire in your words. Mother O prophet, I cannot comprehend the coldness in your words. Moses I still carry my staff... It may work at any moment. Mother A sword of wood! Moses ( Rising, speaking to the staff. ) No, you will see it work. It will work at any moment. ( To the staff :) Speak, do something, by the permission of God stop the killing, stop the fires and bullets and smoke and explosions, O staff. Dry up the seas and bring their children out safely, unharmed. What is wrong with you? I do not want you to be a serpent crawling on the earth... [x] I want you to be a balm that soothes the hearts of those mothers. What has happened to you? ( Raising it high. ) O staff... I am Moses the prophet, commanding you to extinguish every fire on earth... ( Raising it higher, then stopping. ) Oh, how disappointed I am. Mother ( Sarcastically. ) Are you confident that you are the Prophet Moses? Moses You doubt everything, even my existence. Mother Then how come your staff isn’t working? Moses And who do you think I am? Mother I don't know. Moses ( Raising his voice. ) You must have faith and not let Satan strip it away, O mother. Perhaps God wishes to test your patience and that of mothers through the loss of their loved ones. Mother Did they ever tell you about a mother who sang or danced at her son's funeral? Have you heard of such madness? ( Shouting. ) We, the insane, did that... ( Her mobile rings, and she answers. ) Yes... What do you want? I am still in the Valley of Tuwa, His word... Yes, I spoke to Him, but He did not respond. What should I do? Be a little patient. Tell me, how many mothers are there now? Oh... more than a million mothers... Yes, yes, go now. ( She hangs up. ) It will be a strike of cloaks and black garments, tears. Worship will stop until further notice... Moses You stand in a sacred valley... You must speak with kind words, for God hears what He wills from His servants. Mother And when does He will? Tell me, please... When does He will? Moses I do not know. Mother Then go... Leave me here alone with those cloaks. Moses We haven't found a solution, O mother. Mother And we won't, O prophet. Moses I fear for you the anger of God. Mother There is nothing new... Anger is spreading in our streets in the form of explosive devices, designed to kill our children... And you come to warn me of impending anger? Moses How can I negotiate with this mother? What a dilemma! She's a stubborn woman, O Lord. ( Changing the subject. ) Perhaps your children are now in paradise. Mother ( Laughs. ) And what are they doing there? Moses They live a happy and luxurious life, rivers flow beneath their feet, wide-eyed maidens and eternal youths, food of their desire, and fruits... Mother ( Interrupting. ) You are wrong, O prophet... The true paradise for our children is in our warm embrace! Moses You must now pray to the mothers... and stop them from the idea of striking against prayer and fasting, for this contradicts the essential idea that the creature worships the Creator Mother The decision has been made by consensus between the mothers of the homeland and cannot be reversed. Cease the death of our children in this way or we strike until our demands are met. Moses You have removed God from your heart, and whoever does that turns their heart into nothing but a pump. Mother Our hearts left with our children who left without notice. Moses ( Raising his head. ) It is difficult to negotiate with a woman like this, O Lord. ( Calmly. ) Faith, O mother, is to thank God when He gives you nothing. Mother Say something else, Moses. Moses Faith is... Mother ( Interrupting. ) How can we continue to believe and resist the sight of our children turned into sheep slaughtered, skinned, roasted, and consumed every moment, while God Almighty watches our little sheep? Moses God Almighty is beyond what you describe, what kind of mothers are you? There is nothing in your bodies but your hearts, which speak, scream, cry, decide, and have left the mind dry, lifeless. What happens to this universe? God always wants good for His servants! Mother Where is this good, O prophet? Where? Where do I find it? In which market is it sold? Four children are all I have in this world, three of them burned by explosions, and the remains of their limbs scattered, and you simply speak of good? Moses Death in this way is a dramatic, affecting, but mothers' minds do not comprehend that God wants good by returning children to their rightful place! Mother We have turned from flesh and blood mothers into strange tales of sorrow and blood. Moses And I, too, my staff, have stopped working and turned into a spectator with nothing but applause! Mother You are an unemployed prophet. Moses And unemployed in negotiation. Mother You can watch more, wait, O spectator, watch me for a moment... Moses But I am unable to applaud. Mother Just watch, for free, let the one who does not buy watch our goods without applause... Moses withdraws, watching, the Mother wraps her cloak around her waist, performing the role of Mother 3, bringing a set of "cups" - containers - of water, placing them in at center. Mother 3 I have a thousand cups of water. [xi] Every day I sprinkle them behind my children, one cup so that they return safely from the homeland, one cup so that they walk on their feet in the streets of the homeland, one cup for their souls that the homeland wants to steal, one cup for their hearts, stopped every moment by the homeland's bullets, one cup for their faces, washed with the smoke of the homeland, one cup for their dreams that escape every day in the homeland. ( She cries out. ) All these cups are witnesses that I have never forgotten to sprinkle water behind my children so that evil is expelled from their path, and my heart cools and is reassured so that they return swiftly to my spirit. They haven't returned for years, but as long as their cups are here and I sprinkle water behind them, there must be joyful news that warms the heart. Oh, my sorrow... All the news has stopped... And turned: She mourns, hitting her head with her hands . O mother, remember me, Witnessing a wedding's spree, [xii] Deprived of wedding's glee, My henna turns to blood, tragedy I see. Candle of youth's bright fire, Who will quench its desire? My henna is my blood, My brow lies still in the mud. [xiii] She stops performing the role of Mother 3 . Mother Ha... What do you think, O spectator? Moses My soul hasn't heard of these water cups at all, nor seen the secret of those cloaks, nor understands all this pain! What is happening in this land where my staff has failed me and there are no other goals left for me? Split, O sea, to contain the worries of those mothers. [xiv] Mother ( Smiling. ) You were asleep in heaven, O Prophet, unaware... While we pray every day amidst a blaze. Moses ( Withdrawing. ) What prophecy in me is helpless to wake from its slumber? What dead manhood resides in my soul now? What remains of the dry heart beats within me? What story do I hear? What myth? What pain, what hell, what trivialities, what lies? What homeland? ( Stops. To the mother :) I feel the need to understand this death surrounding you. Mother Speak to God, tell Him to stop this farce. Moses And how will He stop it? Mother You ask me how He will stop it? Is He not God who says to death "Be," and it is, and to life "Be," and it is, and to our children "Return safe," and they return, and to killing "Stop," and it stops? What has happened? Don't tell me that God is no longer capable of everything! Moses ( Yells at her. ) These are the limits set by Allah, so do not approach them. He is capable of everything. Mother We don’t need everything, just one thing. Moses Stop, seek forgiveness and repent to God. Mother What have I done wrong to seek forgiveness? And what have I done to repent for? I have lived a long life as punishment in a prison where there is nothing but the forbidden, loss, hunger, bullets, and waiting. I seek forgiveness though I've done nothing, and I repent though I don't know what to repent for! My life has passed between seeking forgiveness and repentance. ( She cries out. ) I'm tired, do you know what it means to be tired? Wait a moment, please... ( Answers her phone. ) Do not ask me anything, O mother, and listen to me well. Tell all the mothers to prepare for a million-person protest where we call for a strike from prayer and fasting. Yes... we will declare sacral disobedience if our demands are not met by God Almighty! ( Raises her head. ) My Lord, forgiveness. ( Continues her call. ) This is the last solution, yes... and listen to me also: do not leave the Facebook page for a single moment, share all strike slogans with pictures because we are at a historic crossroads, a historic moment, do you know what 'historic' means? Oh, yes... I don't know either, never mind... yes, act now, O mother, act... ( Hangs up. ) Moses What historic moment are you talking about? Mother About today. Moses Yesterday was Pharaoh and his soldiers... Mother ( Interrupts him. ) Today, fear and his soldiers are here. Moses Perhaps my mother is one of those mothers! Mother ( Points to the cloaks. ) Yes... your mother, O Moses, is one of those cloaks. Moses ( Surprised. ) My mother? Mother They took you from her and placed you in the sea… They took away her life, O Moses, and you did not know. Moses I still smell her scent. Mother But our children did not get their fill of a mother's scent... because God did not save them from the sea as He saved you. Moses I suggest you pray here... and raise your hands to Him with a burning heart... and wait. Mother The last prayer you mean? Moses A final attempt. Mother I will pray. ( Stands to pray. ) I will try, so that you don't reproach me on Judgment Day, asking about my prayers and fasting. I will pray, and after that, I have nothing left for you, for I am weary, truly weary. I will try to say: La ilaha illallah ... [xv] but after that, I want You to dry my tears, Subhan Allah... but after that, You extinguish the fire of this heart with a single word from you, Alhamdulillah... [xvi] but after that... Moses ( Interrupts her. ) Pray, O mother... pray. Mother ( Bows down .) I am praying as you see... Moses Pray as people pray! Mother ( Prostrates. ) This is my prayer... I don't know anything else. Moses ( Yells. ) Stop, I've never seen anyone pray like this. Mother ( Stops. ) Only grieving mothers pray like this. Moses With all this madness. Mother Every mad person has their own prayer. Moses I will go mad too. ( Shouts. ) What is happening here? All streets throughout the world are valleys of Tuwa, sacred places that are tainted by even a single drop of blood. No, no, no... silence cannot prevail over a new history of slaughter, and Pharaoh is multiplying in your streets. I will speak to God. Indeed, I will plead with Him for the sake of the mothers... Mother This is the solution... speak to God, please, He hears from His prophets. Moses He has never denied me a request. Mother Go ahead, what are you waiting for? Tell Him about us, our waiting, our stations, our trains that never stop... Moses I will do that. ( Raises his head ) My Lord... I am Moses, the Prophet whom You spoke to in this valley, making me Your spokesman and prophet and Your sign on earth, and making my staff a miracle with which I conquered Your enemies. I come to You today imploring You to stop the river of blood in the land of mothers. Send Your rain upon the streets so it may cleanse and prepare for the prayer of love that You taught us. There is no salvation except through You, for the sake of those weary hearts. O Lord, stop this bleeding, give a sign or speak to me with a single word, tell me, "I will do it." I am Your prophet Moses, whose prayers You have always answered; it is inconceivable that You would not answer me now. It is inconceivable! O Lord, say something, please... O Lord. (Stops in disappointment. ) Mother What happened? Moses Nothing. Mother Even you, O Prophet? Moses Even I, O mother! Mother What do you mean? Moses He did not answer my prayer. Mother And you are a Prophet?! Moses Yes... and I am a Prophet. Mother So how about us, mere cloaks walking the earth? Moses I don't know. Mother Hasn’t Allah sent you to negotiate with us? Moses All in vain. I will abandon this task... it seems the curse of killing has settled here and won't stop. Mother You witness it, O Prophet... we have no choice but to strike from prayer and fasting. Moses ( To himself. ) No choice... death is a law of life but turned into a law for death! Azrael [xvii] no longer takes souls as usual... graves relinquished their boundaries, and Munkar and Nakir [xviii] ceased their lengthy questioning... It is inconceivable for them to question bodies whose souls have been torn into a thousand pieces. Mother ( On the phone .) Listen, O mother... unfortunate news: Allah did not answer our demands. Let's begin by declaring our strike from prayer and fasting until our rightful demands are met. Next Friday will be under the slogan: "O Lord: Save Our Children, Or No Prayer/Fasting." ( Hangs up. ) Moses ( To himself. ) O Lord: Save Our Children, Or No Prayer/Fasting! Mother Go, O Prophet, to your paradise and leave us alone with the, go... Moses I will not go. Mother What do you mean? Moses I will stay here. Mother But you are a Prophet living in paradise. Moses Paradise, as I see it, is to share in these cloaks' demands. Mother What do you mean to say? Moses I will be with you. Mother With us? How? Moses ( Raises his head. ) Your pardon, O Lord. I have spent my entire life close to those tormented souls on earth. I will not return to paradise until this pain ends. I cannot live in a paradise where rivers flow beneath it, [xix] while here is a homeland where hellfire runs below. It is not possible... ( Firmly to the mother. ) Listen... I will join you in striking from prayer and fasting! Mother How will you join us while you are a Prophet? Moses I will pause my prophethood for a while to stop this farce. Mother Aren't you afraid of Allah's anger upon you as a Prophet? Moses He will not be angry with me. He knows there is nothing in my heart and soul except Him. Mother ( On the phone. ) Yes... listen, O mother... the Prophet Moses will join us in the strike. ( Shouts. ) Moses will be with us! Post urgently on Facebook: Moses the Prophet joins the mothers in striking from prayer and fasting until the killing of our children stops... ( Hangs up. ) Moses ( Loud. ) O Lord, I plead to You to stop this killing. Mother ( Loud. ) Mothers want to stop the bloodshed. Moses O Lord, stop this darkness. Mother There is no one for us except You, O Lord. Moses There is no one for us except You. Mother and Moses ( Shouting together, scattering the cloaks around them. ) Stop this death, O Lord. Stop the fire, stop the sorrow, there must be a solution, we beg You. Stop the dismemberment of our children. O Lord, Your mercy, Your compassion, You who created us and are responsible for our protection. O Lord, O Lord, O Lord... ( They continue shouting, then they leave the valley, but their voices turn into thousands of voices, indicating a massive protest flooding the streets. ) The End [i] A wailing sound Iraqi woman make when hearing bad or sad news, especially death. [ii] "Allahu Akbar" (God is great) is a common expression used by Muslims in various contexts, including when receiving terrible or sad news. [iii] Similarly to the biblical story, in the Islamic tradition Moses’s mother leaves him in a basket on the Nile in order to protect him from the danger of the Pharaoh who killed new born Israelites, and the basket is recovered by the Pharaoh's wife, who adopts Moses. Quran 20:39 and 28:3-4, 7-9. Here and throughout the play Moses’s being cast into the river (imagined as the sea) in order to escape mass death and his forced separation from his mother are paralleled with the experiences of the mothers and their children. [iv] The grieving mother has wandered the streets waiting for the return of her son. [v] Quran, 2:34. Iblees (or Eblīs) corresponds with the biblical figure of Satan. [vi] Quran, 90:4. [vii] From Prophet Muhammad’s hadith, “Heaven lies beneath the feet of your mother.” [viii] In Arabic, Saeed means happy. [ix] While the story of Job in the Islamic tradition is similar to that of the biblical story of the Book of Job, in the Islamic tradition Job is steadfast in his suffering and does not entertain the same doubts that the biblical Job does. [x] As in the biblical story of Moses, in the Quran the staff of Moses miraculously turns into a serpent. Quran, 28:31. [xi] A practice among mothers in Iraq involves sprinkling water behind their children as they leave the house, believing it protects them from evil and misfortune and ensures they will return [xii] “Spree” here refers to the wedding procession and celebration, the Zaffe (or Zaffa), a Middle-Eastern tradition of bringing the newlyweds into their reception hall surrounded by music and dance. [xiii] These are famous verses written by poet Kadhim al-Karbala’i and recited in memory of Al-Qasim, son of Imam al-Hassan, who was killed in the battle of Karbala in 680 CE. The verses express his wish for his mother to remember him when she witnesses a wedding ceremony. He died young, and his mother did not have the chance to see him marry. Instead of the tradition of henna adorning his hands during weddings, his blood stains him, and his body rests beneath the soil. [xiv] Referring to the story of Moses in the Quran, 26:63. [xv] “There is no god but Allah”: a fundamental declaration of faith in Islam, known as the Shahada. Muslims recite this phrase to affirm their belief in the oneness of Allah and the central tenet of Islam that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah. [xvi] Subhan Allah means “Glory be to God” or “He be glorified and exalted,” declares God to be above any fault, shortcoming, corrupt notions, or false idea. Alhamdulillah means “Praise be to God.” [xvii] The Angel of Death is present and the name Azrael appears in both Christianity and Judaism. However, Azrael is more established in Islam, where he is one of the archangels alongside Mikhail (Michael), Jibril (Gabriel), and Israfil. [xviii] In Islamic belief, Munkar and Nakir are two angels who are tasked with questioning the deceased in the grave about their faith and deeds. [xix] A reference to Quran, 9:72. Article Bibliography, References & Endnotes References About The Author(s) Bios : Author: Ali Abdel-Nabi Al-Zaidi was born in Nasiriyah in 1965 and graduated from the Teachers’ Institute of that city in 1987. His plays have been performed on stages across Iraq and the Arab world and internationally, earning him numerous national and international awards. His play collections include The Eighth Day of the Week ( Thāmin Ayām al-ʾUsbu’ ; 2000), The Return of the Man Who Has Not Been Absent (ʿ Awadat al-Rajul alladhi lam Yaghīb ; 2005), A Show in Arabic (ʿ Arḍ bil ʿArabi ; 2011), The Divine Plays (Al-ʾIlāhiyāt; 2014), and Plays of the Corrupt City ( Nuṣūs al-Madīna al-Fāsida ; 2021). Translator Amir Al-Azraki is a playwright, literary translator, Theatre of the Oppressed practitioner, and Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Studies in Islamic and Arab Cultures Program at Renison University College, University of Waterloo. Among his plays are: Waiting for Gilgamesh: Scenes from Iraq , The Mug , and The Widow . Al-Azraki is the translator of Africanism: Blacks in the Medieval Arab Imaginary , author of The Discourse of War in Contemporary Theatre (in Arabic), co-editor and co-translator of Contemporary Plays from Iraq , “A Rehearsal for Revolution”: An Approach to Theatre of the Oppressed (in Arabic), and co-editor and co-translator of Arabic poetry in Consequence , The Common , Poetry Foundation and Talking Writing . Amir Al-Azraki, PhD, (he/him) Program Coordinator, Studies in Islamic and Arab Cultures Associate Professor, Culture and Language Studies Renison University College, affiliated with the University of Waterloo aaliazraki@uwaterloo.ca 519-884-4404 ext. 28671 Editor of the English translation: Jeff Casey is Associate Professor of Theatre and Theatre Director at Norwich University. His scholarly articles have appeared in Theatre Topics , Quarterly Review of Film and Video , Modern Drama , and Ecumenica . He works extensively as a theatre director, producer, designer, dramaturge, and playwright. His directing credits include Cabaret , Chicago , Kafka’s The Trial , Voices from a People’s History of the United States , Harold Pinter’s Party Time and The New World Order , and Neil Simon’s Rumors. Arab Stages Arab Stages is devoted to broadening international awareness and understanding of the theatre and performance cultures of the Arab-Islamic world and of its diaspora. The journal appears twice yearly in digital form by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center of New York and is a joint project of that Center and of the Arabic Theatre Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents O Lord! By Ali Abdel-Nabi Al-Zaidi Mothers Challenging the Divine: Ali Al-Zaidi’s Ya Rab! The 31st Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre. September 1-11, 2024. ARTIFICIAL HEART. By Mohammad Basha and Firas Farrah. LEILI & MAJNUN. Written and directed by Torange Yeghiazarian SHAHADAT (THE TESTIMONIES) Adapted by Fouad Teymour Review: TO THE GOOD PEOPLE OF GAZA: THEATRE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE Staging Revolutions and the Many Faces of Modernism: Performing Politics in Irish and Egyptian Theatre Previous Next Attribution: Entries under this journal are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Arab Stages 14 Spring 2023 Volume Visit Journal Homepage Review: Playwright Showcase, New Arab American Theater Works By Katherine Hennessey Published: May 1, 2023 Download Article as PDF Article Bibliography, References & Endnotes References About The Author(s) Arab Stages Arab Stages is devoted to broadening international awareness and understanding of the theatre and performance cultures of the Arab-Islamic world and of its diaspora. The journal appears twice yearly in digital form by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center of New York and is a joint project of that Center and of the Arabic Theatre Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Review: Mother Courage adapted and directed by Alison Shan Price Review of Theaters of Citizenship: Aesthetics and Politics of Avant-Garde Performance in Egypt written by Sonali Pahwa Review: Decolonizing Sarah: A Hurricane Play written and directed by Samer Al-Saber “Indigenous Avant-Gardes”: The Shiraz Arts Festival and Ritual Performance Theory in 1970s Iran Review: Baba written by Denmo Ibrahim, directed by Hamid Dehghani Review of MUKHRIJĀT AL-MASRAḤ AL-MIṢRĪ (1990-2010): DIRĀSA SĪMIYŪṬĪQĪYAH [Female Egyptian Directors (1990-2010): A Semiotic Study], written by Hadia Abd El-Fattah Review of Syrian Refugees, Applied Theater, Workshop Facilitation, and Stories: While They Were Waiting written by Fadi Skeiker Review: Layalina written by Martin Yousif Zebari, directed by Sivan Battat Up There by Wael Kadour, Introduction Review: Playwright Showcase, New Arab American Theater Works Two Giants of Egyptian Theatre: Conversations with Mohamed Abul-ʿEla El-Salamouny and Lenin El-Ramly Crossing Borders: A Theatre Practitioner’s Odyssey, An Interview with Hassan El Geretly On Writing Egypt from the Diaspora: An Interview with Adam Ashraf Elsayigh Performance Review: A FAMILY THAT HAS BEEN BLOCKED Performance Review: BETHLEHEM SITE-SPECIFIC THEATER FESTIVAL Performance Review: HOOTA. By Amer Hlehel Performance Review: LITTLE SYRIA Book Review: ACTING EGYPTIAN Book Review: MANSOUR, MONA. THE VAGRANT TRILOGY Previous Next Attribution:

Lynn Deboeck Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 36 1 Visit Journal Homepage Beyond Text: Theater and Performance in Print After 1900 Lynn Deboeck By Published on December 11, 2023 Download Article as PDF BEYOND TEXT: THEATER AND PERFORMANCE IN PRINT AFTER 1900. Jennifer Buckley. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2019; Pp. 278. Beyond Text: Theater and Performance in Print After 1900 challenges the historiography of print media as we have known it and brings together text and performance practices as symbiotic, rather than mutually exclusive. Taking on the rich and contradictory history of “killing off the Book,” Beyond Text calls out anti-textual artists and their use of print media—not to emphasize hypocrisy, but rather to illuminate text’s enduring life in and around the performance art worlds. Jennifer Buckley highlights that the evolution of text has largely been recorded within essentialist narratives that have made trouble by assuming text to be the opposite of performance because it“ precedes, in time, the process of theatrical production; because writers accord it artistic precedence over production; and because its traditional medium is durable and static while performance is ephemeral and mutable” (10). The physical book of Beyond Text is hard-covered, with the image of Carolee Schneemann on the front, perusing a book with her cat, Kitch, on her lap. The binding of this tome creaks at its initial openings, almost as if it has the first line in our interactions. The nine-inch by six-inch pages, with their copious open margins, allow the reader easier access and a bountiful opportunity for note-taking—indeed, it seems to be encouraged. Rather than simply negating what has been documented about print media’s history and its relationship with performance, Buckley’s deep analysis of each performance artist or group she covers allows us as readers to make the journey beyond text with her by taking up how theatre makers have interacted with and made bookworks or engaged with text-based formats. Her arguments include that the avant-garde anti-textualist movement that is often brought forward in discussions of late twentieth century performance is not just limited but is actively limiting what we can know about our own histories because it has not“encompass[ed] the book arts, which are experiencing yet another boom in yet another era when print is supposed to be dying” (24). The book is divided into five chapters with an introduction and a coda. In her introduction, Buckley uses Big Dance Theater’s bookwork Another Telepathic Thing as an entry point for how we have understood the relationship (or, perhaps more accurately, disdain) between performance art mediums and print matter (she bristles at the exclusionist term ‘the book’). In so doing, she simultaneously calls out those of us who have historically ignored print practices and their role in performance and reveals that in fact, bookworks are experiencing yet another explosion in the here and now (one of many since 1900). Each chapter addresses, in chronological order, the evolution of performance-makers’ relationship with text and print. In chapter 1,“A Place for Seeing,” Beyond Text takes up Edward Gordon Craig’s vision of what the theatre could be and the bookworks he created. Buckley establishes the trajectory of text as non-linear with Craig’s banishment of playwrights and his contradictory use of much older media, such as wood engraving. She examines Craig’s written intentions to “exhibit" and “show” actors what he wanted in performance, rather than resort to speech since he saw words as having only “technical” status—though perhaps useful for notation. Chapter 2, “Scoring Theatre,” takes the notation idea from Craig and connects it to Lothar Schreyer’s ideas around how to score theatre in a way that others could reasonably emulate. Schreyer’s system, Spielgang , was an attempt to do this and Buckley dissects the technique, revealing how it was used in specific performances and how it affected art writ large in its elevation of the notation-system’s use to a spiritual endeavor intended to help create reproducible community works ( Gemeinschaftswerk ). Chapter 3 shifts forward in time yet again, but in this instance, Buckley pulls the thread of community works forward to look at a theatre collective in lieu of individuals. The Living Theatre and their publication negotiations are detailed in this chapter, highlighting how ironically Julian Beck and Judith Malina used the printed works they published commercially to establish their agenda of anti-texualist and anarchist performance principals. Chapter 4 returns to an individual, Carolee Schneemann, and is titled “The Body in the Book” for her ability to“see and articulate the conceptual and material intersections between her visual artworks, performances, and publications” (126). From Schneemann’s Interior Scroll to her work with the Beau Geste Press, Buckley traverses the evolution of print media through the microcosm of a single performer/art-maker to demonstrate a collaborative kinetic aesthetics that invites participation from the reader/viewer. Chapter 5 also investigates the use of participation of spectators in the immersive work of Guillermo Gómez-Peña’s Códices . Buckley considers how his codices serve as border sites and kits for participants to encounter the “other” in “participatory identity rituals” as “good bordercrossers” and as “models for the usefully creative appropriation of others’art” (195). In her Coda, Buckley firmly asserts (which, by this point, she no longer has to) that print matter will have a future relationship with performance, the shape of which she does not wish to speculate about. It is telling that a full 15% of the book—the remainder after the Coda and before the bibliography—is notes. For those with the intention, time, and appetite to delve into this printed work further, Buckley provides fodder from her extensive archival research. Beyond Text teaches that text work and live performance are“no longer locked in a Darwinian struggle for precedence, [but] coexist under the rubric of the performatic...” (197) This monograph provides a valuable contribution to the fields of Performance Studies, Print Media and disciplines that straddle the two. As I closed this book, my thoughts drifted back to one of Craig’s performance descriptions:“‘And then a pause... a perfect balanced thought is poised before us, and all is still... All is accomplished. Silence. All rests...’” (36) Revelatory and well-researched, Beyond Text ends with so much potential energy vibrating within and beyond its covers and performance histories—waiting to be experienced again and again. References Buckley, Jennifer. Beyond Text: Theater and Performance in Print After 1900. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2019. Footnotes About The Author(s) Dr. Lynn Deboeck is an Associate Professor of Theatre and Gender Studies at the University of Utah. She earned her PhD in Theatre and a Graduate Certificate in Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies from the University of Kansas. Her research interests include reproductive women on stage, gender and representation in performance, pedagogy in higher education and feminist theatre. Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Community Circles and Love Triangles: Gun Violence and Belonging in Oklahoma! and West Side Story Decommissioning the School-to-Prison Pipeline: Anna Deavere Smith’s Notes from the Field and Dominique Morisseau’s Pipeline More than a Props List: Redefining Material Culture as Survival and Pleasure in Lynn Nottage’s Ruined The Politics of Trance: Victoria Woodhull and the Radical Reform of Platform Mediumship Beyond Text: Theater and Performance in Print After 1900 Emily Mann: Rebel Artist of the American Theatre Made Up Asians: Yellowface During the Exclusion Era Performance in the Zócalo: Constructing History, Race, and Identity in Mexico's Central Square from the Colonial Era to the Present Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Kristyl D. Tift Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 38 2 Visit Journal Homepage It Was All a Dream: Shifting Du Boisian Notions in Richard Wesley’s The Talented Tenth Kristyl D. Tift By Published on May 26, 2026 Download Article as PDF In “Criteria of Negro Art” (1926), W.E.B. Du Bois identifies what he called the “new stirrings” among young Black people of the time—“stirrings of the beginning of a new appreciation of joy, of a new desire to create, of a new will to be, as though in this morning of group life we had awakened from some sleep that at once dimly mourns the past and dreams a splendid future.” 1 Du Bois’s valuation of joy, creativity, consciousness, and futurity echoes the creative vibrancy and urgency happening during the Harlem Renaissance. Believing in the potential of younger generations of Black folk to use Art to establish the humanity and brilliance of the “race,” Du Bois, here, expands his research as a sociologist of African American life and culture to activism. Manning Marable notes that, after publishing The Philadelphia Negro in 1899—a first-of-its-kind sociological study of Black Philadelphians living in the Seventh Ward between 1896 and 1897—Du Bois “was especially convinced that careful sociological measurement, combined with a proper cultural and historical understanding of a social group, could lead to the construction of a social agenda for reform.” 2 In the groundbreaking study, Du Bois determines the need for Black communal “reform” based on his observations of a large section of the population who had limited or no access to decent wages, jobs, food, housing, sanitary living conditions, and education. These bleak outcomes, which directly resulted from American slavery and the failed Reconstruction era, required interventions. In "The Talented Tenth" (1903), Du Bois proposed a solution: encourage the Black middle class to take responsibility for helping lower-class Blacks become upwardly mobile (through hiring Black labor, for example). He believed that a new generation of educated Black elites, a group he called The Talented Tenth, would lead the race to full civil rights. Du Bois imagined that 10% of African Americans who excelled academically, socially, economically, and artistically were the chosen ones whose collective intellectual contributions, cultural production, and leadership would function holistically as an armor of resistance to systemic racism in the U.S. Theoretically, the emergence and institutionalization of the “tenth” would help not only those less privileged to become liberated, but it would liberate the entire community. While this call to action was notable for its emphasis on the moral duty and obligation of the middle class, it ignored the alluring benefits and exclusionary politics of capitalism, which reinforced the very class hierarchies that Du Bois identified as obstacles to racial uplift in his early studies. As Marable writes, “The Talented Tenth theory was a strategy to win democracy for all Black Americans. The burden of struggle resided upon those of the race best prepared, educationally and economically, to lead that fight.” 3 The problem with this theory is that while the “burden” seems a light load to carry for those with class privilege, for racialized people the load is still quite heavy regardless of class, and the weight can breed self-righteousness, self-loathing, and resentment that only deepens intraracial divisions. The African American class conundrum is one that generations of playwrights have explored at length in the theatre, 4 including Richard Wesley, who, having studied under Owen Dodson at Howard University, began his professional career at New Lafayette Theatre in the early 1970s under the mentorship of Ed Bullins. A number of Wesley’s plays, including The Mighty Gents (1978) and The Talented Tenth (1989), document the promise and disillusionment of Black American dreams—not only because of White racism but, more remarkably, because of intraracial class breakdowns. His works magnify the elusive pleasures and lingering anxieties and regret often associated with performances of superiority and dominance. The Talented Tenth recognizes, as Du Bois himself eventually did, the inherent classist assumptions and practical limitations of Black elitism. In this essay, I am concerned with Du Bois’s shift from the individualized theory of the “tenth” to an institutional conceptualization of “Negro Art”. 5 Reading Wesley’s The Talented Tenth , set in the 1990s, I explore the playwright’s use of dreams and memories as reflections of and responses to Du Bois’s shifting ideas about what constitutes Black advocacy, activism, and excellence. 6 In The Talented Tenth , the curtain rises on a beach in Negril, Jamaica. Bernard, a man in his forties, stands off to the side as his wife, Pam, and their three friends, Marvin, Ron, and Rowena—all of whom are former Howard University classmates—relax in the sun. Bernard is daydreaming about his first job interview with Mr. Griggs, who is in his fifties and the owner of a radio station. The daydream, which is shown onstage, takes place in the 1960s. The dialogue begins easily, with the two connecting over a mutual acquaintance, before quickly shifting into more direct speech (similar to a grilling rather than an interview). Their exchange, thereafter, exemplifies the kind of miscommunication that can occur between those of differing generations; it also captures the tension of the nationwide racial and political upheaval of that turbulent time. Griggs—a World War II veteran-turned-businessman—has achieved success through hard work, whereas Bernard has only recently graduated from Howard and is at the start of his career in business. While Bernard aspires to Griggs’ level of success, the older man is grumpy and condescending with a temperament that suggests that whether or not the young man gets the job, achieving and maintaining a spot in the mythical “tenth” will not (and should not, according to Griggs) be easy. Griggs holds the keys to the metaphorical gate between Bernard and his first job, but it is important to note that, although respectful, Bernard is not docile (a fact that leads him and Griggs to disagree on the direction of the radio station in the years that follow). Bernard has an activist past, including participating in protests as a college student and embracing a pan-Africanist worldview, which was strengthened by his relationship with his then-girlfriend, Habiba. After graduation, the general expectation was for him to secure a “good” job and put his radicalism aside for the betterment of the race. By doing this, he sacrifices his dream for Du Bois’s dream, which, as Zachary R. Williams summarizes it, was for “college-educated blacks to become race men and women [and] lead the race to social equality.” 7 Bernard represents a new wave of young, educated Black people invested in individualism and capitalism. 8 To Griggs’ annoyance, the young man has his sights set on the fruits of his labor (i.e., “[making] lots of money” and spending it) rather than the labor necessary to make money that would serve the needs of the company and, proximally, the needs of the race. To Griggs, young people of Bernard’s generation have a “duty” and “responsibility” to suffer and struggle for the next generations, just as he has. He instructs: It’s the first seven generations after slavery that will suffer the most. They’re the ones who have nothing to look forward to except struggle. They’re the ones who have to bear the pain, make the sacrifices, and fight the battles that have to be fought and won. Your trouble will always come when you begin to think that you deserve a good time; when you begin to think the world is your oyster. You’re generation number six, Mr. Evans. Your grandchildren can have the good time. 9 Griggs articulates a logic and ethic not uncommon among his generation, for whom lifetimes of sacrifice have resulted in more freedoms for their children than they were afforded. This strategy is reminiscent of Robin D. G. Kelley’s “freedom dreaming,” 10 which is, essentially, imagining liberty and justice through a love for the collective that exists beyond the boundaries of what is possible realistically and politically. The discourse on Black freedom through acts of dreaming and speculation is not new in Black Studies, but scholars such as Jayna Brown, reading Frantz Fanon, have discussed such acts in the context of utopia. Brown defines Black utopia as “the moments when those of us untethered from the hope of rights, recognition, or redress here on earth celebrate ourselves as elements in a cosmic effluvium.” 11 Embracing the present as a radical temporality, Brown writes, “In fact, I don’t think utopia needs hope at all. Hope yearns for a future. Instead, we dream in place, in situ, in medias res, in layers, in dimensional frequencies.” 12 It is within a dimensional frequency that nods toward the future but is situated in a past adjacent to the present that opposing Black male-centered utopic ideologies touch discursively in Bernard’s paradisaic dreamscape. Bernard and Griggs both have dreams rooted in economic success; however, Griggs’ dream is Blacker than it is green. Economics, for him, is a way to amass power that will inevitably advance Black people. Griggs is doggedly focused on racial uplift through ownership rather than what he reads as Bernard’s pursuit of economic gain for selfish reasons. This is a subtle yet important nuance: the men are similar, yet their generational positionalities leave them dreaming slightly different dreams, imagining slightly different realities, and pursuing those realities in slightly different ways. It is from this marginal difference that Griggs harshly scrutinizes Bernard. The tail end of the scene reveals Griggs’ paternalistic posturing for what it is: a performance meant to arouse obedience. The end of the scene is a reflective imagining, an annotation of sorts, in which Bernard tells Griggs that his words that day “frightened [him].” Griggs replies simply, “I know.” Then, Bernard admits, “I’ve been frightened ever since.” 13 The surrealism of this moment allows the two men to be honest, even vulnerable, with one another without being intimate or even present together. It is no coincidence that Bernard’s fear and Griggs’ intent are made evident in a daydream; it is a calmer frequency in which to tell the truth. Further, neither of them discusses affect or emotions in the realistic scenes between them that follow. Instead, those scenes are mostly centered on business discussions related to the radio station. As the scene shifts back to Bernard’s contemporary reality with his wife and friends on the beach, it is clear that he is at a crossroads directly shaped by his race, age, class, and gender. That first interview lingers in Bernard’s mind, and it is interesting that at a time and place when he should be relaxing and enjoying his money and leisure time, the memory of it haunts him. Bernard yearns for something missing or lost in his life—something reflective of the downside of assuming a class positionality “above” rather than “alongside” one’s people. Of the Bernards of the world who “now found themselves in their forties and successfully integrated into the American dream,” Wesley observes the material reality—the “spacious homes, the requisite expensive cars, overseas vacations, excellent pension packages, and political connections” 14 —that still leave them desiring something they relinquished to acquire the people, places, and things that keep them occupied, sedated, and blind to the needs of the collective. Wesley’s dramatic inquiry into what happened to the young activists of the 60s who shifted their talents in an alternative direction exposes a Talented Tenth whose roots in Black working-class communities were at best leggy. Reflecting on Du Bois’s idealistic dream of the “tenth” and his subsequent shift away from it, Wesley writes, “Realizing almost immediately how elitist this idea appeared, Du Bois abandoned it and never sought to promote it.” 15 This is a truth that, according to Joy James in Transcending the Talented Tenth (2013), is often underacknowledged. “Race memory,” James writes, “misleads as it fails to recall that the greatest promoter of black elite agency became, in time, its most severe critic.” 16 After the opening daydream ends, Wesley depicts this Du Boisian course correction through a sequence of stressful encounters that lead Bernard to a crisis point in his personal and professional lives. Bernard’s life has been an experiment in intraracial “double consciousness” which has manifested as class and color trouble. Understanding the complexities of double consciousness within the race, Wesley explores colorism in the love triangle between Bernard’s light-skinned wife, Pam, his dark-skinned former girlfriend, Habiba, and his dark-skinned mistress, Tanya. 17 Habiba is a memory that never materializes, yet she is very present. She represents a missed opportunity for Bernard to pursue a life and career path rooted in Black liberation and Black cultural practices of love and activism. He idealizes Habiba, lamenting what could have been had they not split up. Despite this, he applies principles of the Black Power Movement to his work at the radio station to positive effect. As Griggs’ partner, he does not have the power to make major decisions about the company’s direction, but he anticipates that his hard work over the years will lead Griggs to give him ownership of the company. Although it is never explicitly stated, ownership, to Bernard, is the consolation prize for carrying future generations on his shoulders. Griggs, however, intends to sell the company to a communications conglomerate called Pegasus International—a move which sparks frustration and resentment. Bernard believes this conglomerate will take advantage of his programming work in centering Black voices and music, which has, to this point, grown the station’s listenership. Although he has the option to continue as an employee, the buyout will likely disrupt the radio station's “controversial” aesthetic and other political elements that make it culturally Black. On top of this betrayal, his marriage to Pam and extramarital relationship with Tanya are crumbling under the weight of his ambition, apathy, and self-centeredness. Wesley’s play is Du Bois’s Talented Tenth theory in practice, and Bernard’s life is the foremost case study. The women in the play, especially Tanya and Pam, play supporting roles, representing Bernard’s desire and ambition. Wesley, highlighting their importance, gives them space to speak in monologues inserted between scenes or self-reflective moments within scenes; this is the only way their voices and perspectives are relayed without Bernard as their filter. When they speak, it becomes clear that they are successful, intelligent women defined by their proximity to a man and his dreams. Tanya, a journalist who graduated from Spelman College and Columbia University, grew up in a working-class family. While she fills the ever-present void of Habiba (in complexion only), it is clear by her incessant requests for Bernard to leave his wife that she is the anti-Habiba—she does not have the strength to leave him although she communicates a multitude of reasons why she should. Reading like Savannah in Terry McMillan’s Waiting to Exhale , she considers herself to be a “woman of substance” rather than a “popular” woman (like Pam), which leads me to determine that Tanya is not fighting for Bernard, she is fighting against Pam—a placeholder for light-skinned women—who, in Tanya’s experience, have not had to be of substance to get the guy of their dreams. Patience, she believes, is the attribute that will make her the victor, overall; however, she does not factor in the other “other woman”—Habiba—as a potential obstacle. Pam, however, is well aware that Habiba (the memory of her) is both of their competition. Pam and Bernard’s marriage has always been more about optics than love. From a colorist perspective, she was the more pragmatic choice for a wife instead of a dark-skinned woman like Habiba or Tanya—a fact that Bernard never denies (because he cannot). Aesthetically, Pam exists in harmony with the quintessential picture of the African American family that he was sold; that is, the elitist imagining of Du Bois’s notion. In a conversation with Tanya, who is pressuring Bernard to decide between her and Pam, he reveals that his achievements—running a radio station, heading a household, being respected by his cadre of middle-class friends, and even having a loving girlfriend outside of his marriage—are unfulfilling. He admits, “Now, it’s all these years later and I’m scared and I’m angry because I want to change my life and do some things I’ve never had a chance to do. But, if I do I could hurt my wife and my children and everyone who depends on me, so I stay where I am and I dream. But I don’t dare act .” 18 Standing and dreaming alone while afraid is where we find Bernard at the beginning of the play and, although he appears in control, he remains in that state psychologically and emotionally. In this embodiment, he appears stuck in stillness on the sidelines as life moves around him; however, he has options. He can remain still or move forward, but he seems to be waiting for the right decision to occur to him or for someone else to make it for him. What is clear is that he is tired of gauging his choices by society’s metric. While Tanya’s concern is whether he loves her more than Pam, Bernard is on the precipice of making choices in his business and personal lives that put the security and respectability of those he is responsible for, even Tanya, at risk. As “talented” as he is, he is too human and too fallible to live up to unattainable standards. Thus, he stands and he dreams, evaluating his past in the present. The best decision eventually occurs to him. In fact, he divorces his wife and ends his relationship with Tanya. Some weight is lifted off of his shoulders, and he acts on his dreams by devising a plan to buy the radio station. In the final scene, parroting his interview with Griggs, Bernard interviews a “young man”—his son—“the seventh generation since slavery”—for a position at the station. The scene is similar to the first but, instead of completely reproducing the toxic dynamics between his younger self and Griggs, Bernard infuses hope in the conversation. Nearly verbatim, he repeats Griggs’ diatribe about generations, history, passivity, race, and struggle. As was his experience, the content of this monologue “scares” the young man. Then, Bernard follows up with a directive to dampen his son’s fear and help him take actionable steps forward—“Well, don’t be scared, young blood. Just be ready.” 19 This resolution is a full circle moment in which Bernard is now the empowered mentor; however, instead of playing Griggs’ role, he has taken the useful lessons he learned from him and adjusted them slightly, leaving room for a new generation to move. The Talented Tenth demonstrates how the theory that inspired it is handicapped by elitism and a lack of attention to the nuances of the intraracial politics that sometimes complicate Black American dreams. Be that as it may, a debt of gratitude is owed to W.E.B . Du Bois, the foremost Black intellectual of the twentieth century, for proposing an idea that has become a catalyst in dramatic narratives dating as far back as Theodore Ward’s Big White Fog (1938), Abram Hill's On Strivers Row (1939), and Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun (1959). It is difficult to imagine what the substance of Black Theatre would be without Du Bois’s polarizing concept. The Talented Tenth and contemporary plays that painstakingly scrutinize the inner workings and interpersonal impact of class on Black individuals and communities make clear that the discourse is as significant now as it was when Du Bois was most prolific. The Talented Tenth , as I read it, is more dream than theory. The century-old quandary of how best to cultivate and employ Black talent to elevate Black people is always already followed by unending ellipses that those of us within the collective, however privileged, must interpret and redefine as we progress between points along the margins of a surreal society…to the center…and back… References 1 W.E.B. Du Bois, Criteria of Negro Art (Crisis Publishing Company, 1926), 2. 2 Marable, Manning, W.E.B. Du Bois: Black Radical Democrat (Boston: Twayne, 1986), 26. 3 Emphasis mine. Marable, 51. 4 Dominique Morisseau’s Confederates (2022), Lynn Nottage’s Sweat (2017), Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop (2009), Lydia R. Diamond’s Stick Fly (2008), Dael Orlandersmith’s Yellowman (2002), George C. Wolfe’s The Colored Museum (1986), Charlie L. Russell’s Five on the Black Hand Side (1973), Ed Bullins’s Clara’s Ole Man (1965), Amiri Baraka’s Dutchman (1964), Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun (1959), and Alice Childress’s Trouble in Mind (1955) are but a few plays featuring Black characters wrestling with intraracial class conflicts. 5 Du Bois proposed the “talented tenth” theory at the turn of the twentieth century (known as The Progressive Era) during which time social and political reform were on the rise, while his Negro Theatre concept was unveiled in The Crisis during the Harlem Renaissance. 6 The point of this essay, as in the play, is not to criticize Du Bois or his early notion, but to unpack a mindset in Black society that continues to hinder the racial progress that he and many other thought leaders since have only dreamed of. 7 Zachery R. Williams, In Search of the Talented Tenth: Howard University Public Intellectuals and the Dilemmas of Race, 1926-1970, 1st ed (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2009), 17. 8 In 2006, as a graduate student studying at The New School/Actors Studio Drama School, I published a passionate essay that evinced my concern about the state of Black Theatre in the hands of Generation X and cuspy Millennials like myself. What I observed was a desire by twentysomething artists of my generation to assimilate to White Theater standards rather than familiarizing themselves with, valuing, and performing essential plays in the Black theatrical canon. It is validating to read Wesley’s play and interview transcripts in which he discusses a similar social phenomenon among his generation. See Kristyl D. Tift, “Black Theatre in the Hands of Generation X” (Bronx: Black Masks, 2006). 9 Richard Wesley, The Richard Wesley Play Anthology ( Milwaukee: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books , 2015), 174. 10 See Robin D. G. Kelley, Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination (Boston: Beacon Press, 2002). 11 Jayna Brown, Black Utopias: Speculative Life and the Music of Other Worlds (Durham: Duke University Press, 2021), 1-2. 12 Jayna Brown, Black Utopias , 1. 13 Wesley, The Richard Wesley Play Anthology , 174. 14 Wesley, The Richard Wesley Play Anthology , 168-69. 15 Wesley, The Richard Wesley Play Anthology , 171-72. 16 Joy James, Transcending the Talented Tenth : Black Leaders and American Intellectuals (London: Routledge, 2013), 28: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315022383 . 17 For more on the function of colorism in The Talented Tenth ideology before and after Du Bois, see Ronald E. Hall’s “The Du Boisian Talented Tenth: Reviewing and Assessing Mulatto Colorism in the Post-Du Boisian Era” (78-95) in Journal of African American Studies 24, 1 (2020): https://doi.org/10.1007/s12111-019-09457-3 . 18 Wesley, The Richard Wesley Play Anthology , 186. 19 Wesley, The Richard Wesley Play Anthology , 219. Footnotes About The Author(s) Kristyl D. Tift is a performing artist, writer, director, educator, and scholar. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Cinema, Media Arts, and Theatre at Vanderbilt University. Her research interests include African Diaspora theatre and film, queer-feminist performance, theatre for social change, and performance theory. Her essay “Making  Colors : A Black Queer Feminist Experiment in Solo Performance” is published in  Applied Theatre and Racial Justice: Care, Community, Change . An article in  Theatre History Studies  is forthcoming. Other publications include articles and book reviews in  the Black Theatre Review,   Frontiers ,  Theatre Journal,  and the  Journal of American Drama and Theatre . Tift’s book,  A Conditional Embrace: Black Queer Feminism in Performance , is in production with The Ohio State University Press. Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue 100 Years of Du Bois: “Principles of a Real Negro Theatre” and “Criteria of Negro Art” “One Great and Fine Mode of Expression”: On W. E. B. Du Bois and the Exigencies of Black Drama and Theatre Reflections on Fundamental Principles An Expansive “Us”: W. E. B. Du Bois’s “Pan-Negro” Theatrical Vision W. E. B. Du Bois’s Krigwa Little Negro Theatre Movement in Harlem and Beyond It Was All a Dream: Shifting Du Boisian Notions in Richard Wesley’s The Talented Tenth Teaching August Wilson in an Age of Democratic Decline: Du Boisian Imperatives and Black Pedagogy Across Campus and Community Debbie with a D Talks Theatre with a T The Wild Duck Picnic at Hanging Rock Last Call: A Play with Cocktails The Dinosaurs The Routledge Anthology of Women’s Theatre Theory and Dramatic Criticism. Catherine Burroughs and J. Ellen Gainor, editors. New York: Routledge, 2024; Pp. 652. Black Patience: Performance, Civil Rights, and the Unfinished Project of Emancipation. Julius B. Fleming Jr. New York: New York University Press, 2022; Pp. 301. The Theatre of Paula Vogel: Practice, Pedagogy, and Influences. Lee Brewer Jones. New York: Methuen Drama, 2023; Pp. 194. Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Winners Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 33 2 Visit Journal Homepage Errol Hill Award Winners 1997-2020 Winners By Published on May 12, 2021 Download Article as PDF The Errol Hill Award is given by the American Society for Theatre Research in recognition of outstanding scholarship in African American theater, drama, and/or performance studies, as demonstrated in the form of a published book-length project (monograph or essay collection) or scholarly article. The book or article must deal with African American theater history, dramatic literature, or performance studies (research on dance, acting and directing, public performances, i.e., parades, pageants, etc.). 2020: Kemi Adeyemi, University of Washington, Seattle, “Beyond 90°: The Angularities of Black/Queer/Woman/Lean,” Women and Performance 29:1 (February 2019). 2019: Joshua Chambers-Letson, Northwestern University, After the Party: A Manifesto for Queer Color of Life, New York University Press Honorable Mentions Joanna Dee Das, Washington University in St. Louis, Katherine Dunham: Dance and the African Diaspora, Oxford University Press Christian DuComb, Colgate University, Haunted City: Three Centuries of Racial Impersonation in Philadelphia, Michigan University Press Shane Vogel, Indiana University, Stolen Time: Black Fad Performance and the Calypso Craze, University of Chicago Press 2018: Kellen Hoxworth, Dartmouth College, “The Many Racial Effigies of Sara Baartman,” Theatre Survey 58:3 (September 2017). 2017: Renee Alexander Craft, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, When the Devil Knocks: The Congo Tradition and the Politics of Blackness in Twentieth-Century Panama (Ohio State University Press, 2016). Honorable Mentions Christen Smith, University of Texas at Austin, Afro-Paradise: Blackness, Violence, and Performance in Brazil (University of Illinois Press, 2016). T. Carlis Roberts, UC Berkeley, Resounding Afro Asia: Interracial Music and the Politics of Collaboration (Oxford University Press, 2016). 2016 : Uri McMillan, UCLA Embodied Avatars: Genealogies of Black Feminist Art and Performance (New York University Press, 2015). Honorable Mention Adrienne Macki Braconi, Harlem’s Theatres: A Staging Ground for Community, Class, and Contradiction, 1923-1939 (Northwestern University Press, 2015). 2015 : Paige McGinley, Washington University in St. Louis, Staging the Blues: From Tent Shows to Tourism (Duke University Press, 2014) Honorable Mention Faedra Chatard Carpenter, Coloring Whiteness: Acts of Critique in Black Performance (University of Michigan Press, 2014). 2014: Kathleen Gough, Kinship and Performance in the Black and Green Atlantic (Routledge, 2013). Honorable Mentions E. Patrick Johnson & Ramon Rivera-Servera, Solo/black/woman: scripts, interviews and essays (Northwestern University Press, 2014). Macelle Mahala, Penumbra: The Premier State for African American Drama (University of Minnesota Press, 2013). 2013 : Diana Rebekkah Paulin, Imperfect Unions: Staging Miscegenation in US Drama and Fiction (University of Minnesota Press, 2012). 2012 : Bernth Lindfors, Ira Aldridge: The Early Years 1807-1833 (University of Rochester Press, 2011). Honorable Mention Brandi Catanese, The Problem of the Color[blind] (Univesrity of Michigan Press, 2011). 2011: Harvey Young, Embodying Black Experience: Stillness, Critical Memory, and the Black Body (University of Michigan Press, 2010). 2010 : Tavia Nyong’o, The Amalgamation Waltz: Race, Performance, and the Ruses of Memory (University of Minnesota Press, 2009). 2009: Jayna Brown, Babylon Girls: Black Women Performers and the Shaping of the Modern (Duke University Press, 2008). 2008: Cedric Robinson, Forgeries of Memory and Meaning: Blacks and the Regimes of Race in American Theatre and Film before World War II (University of North Carolina Press, 2007). 2007: Daphne Brooks, Bodies in Dissent: Performing Race, Gender, and Nation in the Trans-Atlantic Imaginary (Duke University Press, 2006). 2006: Jill Lane, Blackface Cuba, 1840 – 1895 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005). 2005: Harry Elam, The Past as Present in the Drama of August Wilson (University of Michigan Press, 2004). 2004: E. Patrick Johnson, Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity (Duke University Press, 2003). 2003 : Thomas DeFrantz, Dancing Many Drums (University of Wisconsin Press, 2002). 2002: David Krasner and Harry Elam, Jr., eds., African-American Performance and Theater History: A Critical Reader (Oxford University Press, 2001). 2001 : Kimberly W. Benston, Performing Blackness: Enactments of African-American Modernism (Routledge, 2001). 2000: George A. Thompson, Jr., A Documentary History of African Theatre (Northwestern Univeristy Press, 1998). 1999: Jill Lane, “Blackface Nationalism, Cuba 1840-1868.” Theatre Journal 50, no. 1 (1998). 1998: David Krasner, Resistance, Parody, and Double Consciousness in African American Theatre, 1895-1910 (Macmillan Publishers, 1997). 1997: Annemarie Bean, James V. Hatch, and Brooks McNamara, eds., Inside the Minstrel Mask: Readings in Nineteenth Century Blackface Minstrelsy (Wesleyan University Press, 1996). References Footnotes About The Author(s) Editorial Board: Guest Editors: Nicole Hodges Persley and Heather S. Nathans Guest Editorial Team for this issue: Mark Cosdon, Stephanie Engel, La Donna Forsgren, Javier Hurtado, Mia Levenson, Khalid Long, Derek Miller, Monica White Ndounou, Scot Reese Co-Editors: Naomi J. Stubbs and James F. Wilson Advisory Editor: David Savran Founding Editors: Vera Mowry Roberts and Walter Meserve Editorial Staff: Co-Managing Editor: Casey Berner Co-Managing Editor: Hui Peng Advisory Board: Michael Y. Bennett Kevin Byrne Tracey Elaine Chessum Bill Demastes Stuart Hecht Jorge Huerta Amy E. Hughes David Krasner Esther Kim Lee Kim Marra Ariel Nereson Beth Osborne Jordan Schildcrout Robert Vorlicky Maurya Wickstrom Stacy Wolf Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Introduction to "Milestones in Black Theatre" Prologue to the Issue and a Thank-you to Errol Hill Earle Hyman and Frederick O’Neal: Ideals for the Embodiment of Artistic Truth Newly Discovered Biographical Sources on Ira Aldridge Subversive Inclusion: Ernie McClintock’s 127th Street Repertory Ensemble 1991: Original Broadway Production of Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston's Antimusical Mule Bone Is Presented A Documentary Milestone: Revisiting Black Theatre: The Making of a Movement A Return to 1987: Glenda Dickerson’s Black Feminist Intervention Dancing on the Slash: Choreographing a Life as a Black Feminist Artist/Scholar Playing the Dozens: Towards a Black Feminist Dramaturgy in the Work of Zora Neale Hurston Guadalís Del Carmen: Strategies for Hemispheric Liberation “Ògún Yè Mo Yè!” Pathways for institutionalizing Black Theater pedagogy and production at historically white universities Interviews and Afterviews on “Milestones in Black Theatre” Talking About a Revolutionary Praxis: A Conversation with Black Women Artist-Scholars in the Wake of COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter Tarell Alvin McCraney: Theater, Performance, and Collaboration. Sharrell D. Luckett, David Román, and Isaiah Matthew Wooden, eds. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2020; Pp. 252. Casting A Movement: The Welcome Table Initiative. Claire Syler and Daniel Banks, eds. New York: Routledge, 2019; Pp. 266. The Theatre of August Wilson. Alan Nadel. Metuen Drama Critical Companions Series. London; New York: Methuen Drama, Bloomsbury Collections, 2018; Pp. 224. Shakespeare in a Divided America: What His Plays Tell Us About Our Past and Future. James Shapiro. New York: Penguin Press, 2020. Pp. 221. The Theatre of Eugene O’Neill: American Modernism on the World Stage. Kurt Eisen. Methuen Drama Critical Companions Series. London: Methuen Drama, 2017; Pp 242 + xiv. Errol Hill Award Winners 1997-2020 Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Arab Stages 18 Winter 2025 Volume Visit Journal Homepage Renewed Awareness Toward Salvation: The Journey of The Story of Zahra from Page to Stage By Raeda Ghazaleh Published: December 1, 2025 Download Article as PDF INTRODUCTION Banned in many Middle Eastern countries after its publication due to the provocative nature of the text, Hanan al-Shaykh’s novel The Story of Zahra explores the life of Zahra, which spans multiple decades and continents. In 2019, I co-adapted the final chapter of the book with Matthew Spangler, which focuses on Zahra’s life during the Lebanese Civil War. This article examines the invigorating and boundary-pushing process of adapting and directing this challenging text at the Palestinian National Theatre El-Hakawati in 2020. While often mischaracterized as a Western import, Middle Eastern feminism, as practiced in my artistic work, emerges from local socio-political realities and cultural contexts. It is not a replica of Western feminist frameworks, but rather a situated and evolving praxis that responds to the lived experiences of women. In adapting The Story of Zahra , we drew upon feminist theory and Brecht’s alienation effect to create a critical distance that invited audiences to reflect on structures of gendered and political oppression. In this context, feminist theory foregrounds women's voices and insists on their centrality in cultural narratives and social transformation. Similarly, Brechtian theatre seeks to expose systems of power and challenge theatrical conventions. To this end, we employed three levels of narration that aimed to bring all these elements to the stage. Together, these approaches enabled a form of political theatre that confronts injustice and imagines possibilities for feminist expression in the Arab world. BACKGROUND INFORMATION The play The Story of Zahra premiered in Jerusalem at the Palestinian National Theatre El Hakawati in February 2020, just before the COVID-19 lockdown. It later toured Palestine in October 2021 and was performed at the Journées Théâtrales de Carthage in Tunisia in December of the same year. I first met Lebanese author Hanan al-Shaykh in 2000 while in London directing staged readings at the Royal Court Theatre. Katherine Viner of The Guardian , who interviewed me at the time, introduced us, sensing a shared sensibility. From that meeting, a long-standing friendship developed. I began reading al-Shaykh’s novels and discussing her early life in Beirut, including her decision to leave Lebanon at the outbreak of the civil war. Born in 1944 into a Shiite family in Beirut, al-Shaykh experienced a turbulent childhood marked by her mother’s departure and subsequent years in boarding school. At sixteen, she began writing for An-Nahar newspaper and later pursued her studies in literature at the American College for Girls in Cairo. After a brief return to Lebanon, she resumed work in journalism, but the onset of civil war in 1975 compelled her to flee to London with her two children. Her novel The Story of Zahra (1980) was a turning point in her career. Written in Arabic and met with widespread censorship across the Arab world, the novel was deemed controversial due to its unflinching depiction of sexuality, war, and patriarchal violence. The narrative centers on Zahra, a young woman whose experiences of abuse, political instability, and familial trauma expose the psychological toll of life within a patriarchal community. The novel’s raw critique of patriarchal structures led Arab publishers to reject it, prompting al-Shaykh to publish it independently. Since its English translation in 1986, The Story of Zahra has become a canonical work in Arab literature and is frequently taught in university courses across Europe and North America (Spangler, 3, 10). Al-Shaykh’s literary voice is marked by emotional honesty and feminist conviction rooted in her cultural and political context. As Edward Said remarked, she is “the premier woman writer in Arabic who has done more than any other to explore the misperception of Arab women's lives” (AUB). Her feminism, while distinct from Western frameworks, is deeply committed to giving voice to silenced and fractured female subjectivities. My connection to The Story of Zahra was immediate. After first reading it in 2000, I envisioned its potential as a stage adaptation. Nearly two decades later, I encountered playwright Matthew Spangler, known for his adaptation of The Kite Runner , and found in him a collaborator who shared my sensibility. When I proposed the adaptation to al-Shaykh, she expressed concern about how such a complex and interior novel could be staged. I assured her that the theatrical form I envisioned would honor the novel’s intensity and fragmentation. With that trust, she permitted us to begin the adaptation process. THE NOVEL The Story of Zahra Hanan al-Shaykh’s The Story of Zahra is structurally divided into two distinct books, each reflecting Zahra’s changing psychological state. The first book, comprising the majority of the novel, is primarily narrated from Zahra’s perspective. It recounts her traumatic childhood, marked by her mother’s instrumentalization of her in an extramarital affair and her fear of her abusive father. Seeking escape, Zahra travels to Africa to stay with her uncle, but instead of finding liberation, she is further subjected to sexual harassment and retraumatized by memories of earlier abuse, which included two abortions (Larson, 1991). Her experiences also include an emotionally hollow marriage to her uncle’s friend Majed and repeated returns between Africa and Beirut, underscoring her psychological dissociation and inability to find safety or belonging. Al-Shaykh complicates the narrative voice by including chapters from the perspectives of the uncle and Majed, men who are also portrayed as wounded figures, before returning to Zahra’s fragmented inner world. Through these shifting perspectives and nonlinear chronology, the novel resists classical narrative form. As Sirhan (2024) argues, al-Shaykh “breaks the time continuity” and constructs a plot composed of interwoven threads, reflecting Zahra’s psychological dislocation and aligning the novel with Brechtian techniques of fragmentation and estrangement (2024, 121–126). The second book, set during the Lebanese Civil War, marks a shift in Zahra’s agency. No longer isolated, she begins to engage with the world around her, questioning her past and present: “I am no longer Zahra. In short, my questions and inquiries do not stop” (al-Shaykh 1989, 153). The war serves as a catalyst, prompting Zahra to break free from patriarchal constraints (Sirhan 2024, 112). Her complex and morally ambiguous relationship with a sniper, at once violent, erotic, and psychologically charged, becomes a pivotal point of self-assertion. For the first time, Zahra chooses a relationship, believing she is both reconnecting with her body and preventing further violence. However, her pregnancy and fantasy of family are shattered when she is ultimately killed. As Sirhan notes, her death signifies the delusion of safety in wartime and encapsulates the cumulative violence she has endured (2024, 113). It was this second book that I chose to adapt for the stage, drawn to Zahra’s growing awareness and active engagement with her surroundings. I was particularly interested in how the war acts as a metaphorical rupture that propels Zahra toward self-reflection and confrontation with her trauma. Her wondering about the sniper in the neighbourhood leads her to have a sexual relationship with him. She fears the sniper, but she keeps going to him as she starts to connect with her body again. Zahra’s “relationship with the sniper [is an] embodiment of her deteriorating psychological state” (2024, 112). She realizes that her relationship with the sniper is the first time she is making her own choices. She rationalizes it by telling herself that, by being with the sniper, she is stopping him from killing people (al-Shaykh 1989, 189). However, she soon ends up dead. As Sirhan puts it, “Her death in the end is evidence that feeling safe in war is a delusion” (Sirhan 2024, 113). Zahra’s demise is a culmination of all kinds of violence that she experiences and witnesses. I aimed to create a performance that would allow the audience to hear Zahra’s voice without judgment, to understand her actions within a broader context of gendered violence and political collapse. Zahra’s story functions as a feminist critique of war and patriarchal society in Lebanon (2024, 125). Yasmin Shalaldeh as Zahra. Courtesy of El-Hakawati Theater. BRECHTIAN AND FEMINIST THEORIES IN ADAPTATION Feminist theory critiques patriarchy as a system in which women are historically oppressed, marginalized, and socially constructed to serve male interests. It interrogates how culture, especially literature and performance, has represented women through male fantasies rather than female realities. As Simone de Beauvoir famously said, “one is not born, but rather becomes a woman,” a statement Judith Butler expands on to show how gender is produced through repeated social behaviors rather than biological destiny. Gender can be understood as a patriarchal social given that is determined by the repetition of specific actions over time, “embodying certain cultural and historical possibilities...” (188) rather than leaving the existence of natural and instinctive actions that determine a person’s identity. This opens the door to exploring the possibility of a different kind of repetition, perhaps in the breaking or subversive repetition of that style that indicates to us the gender that is renewed in its identity (2007, 188). Women face many challenges in liberating their bodies from this patriarchal oppression. Still, they must also liberate themselves from their personal perspective, feelings, and opinions acquired through their experiences and backgrounds, which have shaped how they see themselves and their relationship with the world around them. As female subjectivity in general has been shaped within the patriarchal male vision, to be able to become free of it, there is a need for women “to escape the confines of the subjectivity patriarchy sets up for them” (Fortier 2002, 111). Judith Fetterley’s theory of the “resistance reader” was paramount to me throughout this process. Women throughout history adapted the vision of the dominant patriarchal culture. Even when women were allowed to participate in culture, they carried within themselves the male perspective; they wrote from a male point of view. Therefore, in order for women to liberate themselves from that, they must read against what they read, to be able to understand, realize, and criticize how literature has been written from a male perspective, even if women wrote it. Through this act of resistance reading, women can be liberated from patriarchal authoritarianism (Fortier 2002, 108). Theatre has long played a role in reproducing patriarchal narratives, but feminist theorists like Hélène Cixous insist on a woman-centered language and form that emerges from women’s embodied experience. The Story of Zahra employs feminist language techniques because it is a language whose characteristics are the opposite of those found in classical male language. It is free from all the rules of language or the rules of conventional theatre. Its content and form are based on female body characteristics. Just as the “phallocentric” male language takes its components from the male body from which it grows and expresses itself. Similarly, female language draws its components from the characteristics of the female body and sexuality. Just as the male body has created a theatrical form that serves the thinking of men, and this form is the one that is accepted in society, the linear and unidirectional. Feminist writing contrasts with this, the woman’s body is connected to forms that are “circular, cyclical, polyphonic, associative, repetitive, abstract, soft, and constantly changing” (2013, 139). The connection between the body and language is not only metaphorical, but it applies to both men and women, and Cixous explores this idea in depth. Cixous points out that the feminine metaphor that creates the form and manner of expression has a direct and literal connection to the woman's body as a source of creation, inspired by the characteristics and sexuality of women, and this, of course, affects the form of expression in female writing and productions. Through feminist writing, we come to understand that women must rewrite themselves; they must begin expressing themselves from their bodies and their rhythms, from their relationship with motherhood, and their spiritual, emotional, and intellectual development as females. They need to establish their history and rediscover their identity and voice. This differs significantly from the straight male line with a conventional plot. This feminist aesthetics opens up space for dramaturgies that reject the classical, male-oriented structure in favor of more fluid, experiential ones. Cixous’s call for women to “write themselves” has profoundly influenced contemporary feminist theatre, particularly as it intersects with Brecht’s epic theatre. While Brecht did not focus on gender, feminist practitioners appropriated his alienation techniques to critique gender as a constructed sign system. Materialist feminism, in particular, found in Brechtian theory a valuable toolkit for exposing systems of oppression, economic, social, and gendered, through performance. As Aston and Diamond argue, feminist-Brechtian theatre not only aims to represent women differently but to expose and dismantle the patriarchal mechanisms that shape representation itself. Brecht's technique helps to present women in a different way towards revolutionary and social change. As Brecht said: “The production took the subject matter and the incidents shown and put them through a process of alienation: the alienation that is necessary to all understanding” (Willett 1964, 71). Brecht himself did not focus on gender, but rather his work was about a political theatre based on the call for class liberation and a revolution for the oppressed working class. In this way, Brecht failed to recognize that gender discrimination is a crucial component of the working class's struggle. Therefore, the possibilities that could be applied through his theatre theory for the benefit of the materialist women’s movement originated from the feminist movement itself and were utilized to advance feminist projects. Brecht’s theory and his alienation effect technique for the performers “demonstrate systems of social oppression through the medium of performance” (Aston 1999, 13). Spangler and I focused on form: the novel’s nonlinear structure, psychological depth, and estranged timeline, working to align them with epic feminist strategies. Although, two major feminist performance strategies include “reading against the text” to subvert patriarchal narratives and “re-dressing,” which reframes characters to highlight and complicate gender constructions (Sue-Ellen Case; Alisa Solomon), we didn’t need to “read against” the original text because the feminist voice was already there. Nor did we re-dress the characters.The play centers on Zahra as the narrator of her own story, recounting the war in Beirut and the instability of her relationships, especially with her brother Ahmad, who joins a militia, and with the sniper. Initially, the play followed a linear narrative structure, with Zahra as storyteller and expanded roles for Ahmad and the sniper. Yet something essential was missing. We realized the audience lacked access to Zahra’s interiority and the reasons behind her actions. In response, we incorporated three monologues that draw on material from the first book of the novel. These monologues function as Zahra’s inner voice, offering insight into her trauma and charting a trajectory toward self-awareness and strength. We mirrored the novel’s temporal fragmentation, echoing its shifts between past and present. As al-Shaykh “removes the boundaries between times ... inside the character” (2024, 126), the novel’s structure becomes a map of Zahra’s fractured psyche. We followed suit onstage, echoing this disjointed timeline to reflect the character’s trauma and inner life. In the novel, as in our performance, memory and the present interweave. This dramaturgical approach resonated with what Aronson-Lehavi describes as “the interpretive process” of adapting a text for the stage (2013, 120). We developed the script through workshops with actors in May 2019 and a subsequent gathering with readers of the novel. These engagements made clear the importance of contextualizing Zahra’s actions for the audience, particularly in light of ongoing debates around gender-based violence and so-called “honour killings” in Palestinian society. The adaptation resonated deeply with Palestinian women, who recognized Zahra’s pain as reflective of their own experiences. As Spangler initially questioned the relevance of a Lebanese narrative to Palestinian audiences, I argued, and was later affirmed by the response, that Zahra’s story transcends national borders through its feminist lens on oppression, silence, and survival (Spangler, 7). Ultimately, adapting The Story of Zahra for the stage enabled us to amplify a silenced voice, offering a form of feminist resistance that challenges both patriarchy and war. The project not only brought Zahra’s journey into the public realm but also fostered dialogue with audiences about the entanglement of personal trauma and collective history. The stage adaptation traces the psychological and political journey of a young woman navigating a lifetime of patriarchal violence amid the chaos of the Lebanese Civil War. As Zahra gains momentary freedom from familial control, she seeks autonomy and meaning, only to confront forms of exploitation. The production, as noted in the programme, “explores how women are particularly brutalized in times of violence and oppression.” The performance unfolds across four dramaturgical stages, charting Zahra’s evolving consciousness and ultimate demise. Stage One introduces Zahra in wartime Beirut, recounting the fear she experienced in her childhood. Through direct address and domestic scenes, she speaks of the structural oppression she endured, particularly from her father. She provides glimpses into her complex relationship with war, trauma, and desire. In a moment of confronting all of this, a memory of her mother using Zahra as a child to cover up an extramarital affair, taking Zahra with her when meeting her lover, resurfaces in her mind. Her fear and the violence she experiences are what prompt her to leave, looking for a fresh start. Stage Two presents Zahra living independently for the first time. In an abandoned apartment, she initiates a hesitant relationship with the sniper, initially driven by fear, curiosity, and a longing for connection. The arrival of her brother Ahmed, a civil war combatant, reveals further layers of patriarchal aggression and ideological disillusionment. Yasmin Shalaldeh as Zahra (left) and Mohammad Basha as Ahmad (right). Courtesy of El-Hakawati Theater. Stage Three delves into Zahra’s past, particularly her abuse in Africa by a relative and a failed marriage that compounded her trauma. The deepening of her relationship with the sniper appears, to Zahra, as an act of volition, “the first thing she has chosen in her life.” Yet, as she challenges him about his past and observes her brother's further descent into brutality, the limits of her autonomy become increasingly visible. Stage Four sees Zahra confront the most harrowing episodes of her youth: sexual exploitation, forced abortion, and psychiatric abuse. These memories culminate in Zahra's pregnancy by the sniper. Her fantasy of a future rooted in choice and love unravels and, in the story’s final moments, Zahra walks through the streets only to be shot. The ambiguity of the final act underscores the impossibility of liberation within a society shaped by war and patriarchy. Her desire for a new life ends in silence, possibly at the hands of the very man she thought had offered her freedom. Milad Knebe as Sniper (left) and Yasmin Shalaldeh as Zahra (right). Courtesy of El-Hakawati Theater. This adaptation stages Zahra’s narrative not simply as a personal tragedy, but as a broader critique of the intersecting violences of patriarchy, war, and colonial modernity. Our approach drew upon Brechtian techniques to reject psychological realism in favor of critical distance. Zahra’s monologues, direct address, and the disrupted timeline invited audiences to reflect on structural violence rather than become absorbed in a singular character’s tragedy. By fragmenting time and foregrounding Zahra’s consciousness, we disrupted narrative closure, instead emphasizing the broader critique embedded in her story. By staging The Story of Zahra , we offered a feminist form of resistance, confronting the entangled violences of patriarchy, war, and colonial modernity. Our staging emphasized Zahra’s social entrapment not as her private trauma alone, but as a shared, political condition. I resisted Spangler’s initial idea of staging it as a monodrama, knowing that isolating Zahra would risk individualizing her struggle. The play stems from Zahra’s logic, and if we isolate her on stage with all her conflicts, the risk is that the audience will interpret her struggle as purely internal, absolving the public and political context of responsibility. However, if we surround her with other key characters, we can more clearly see the effects they have on her. This multiplicity aligns with Brechtian dramaturgy, where individual psychology is always presented in relation to historical and material conditions. Instead, I built an environment around her, soundscape, spatial design, and supporting characters, that demonstrated how society actively constructs her reality. Even the choice to use the Lebanese dialect, rather than the Palestinian one, created an intentional estrangement effect for local audiences, prompting them to analyze rather than empathize uncritically. The Story of Zahra on stage becomes an example of feminist epic theatre—disrupting traditional narratives, centering women’s experience, and provoking critical engagement with gendered violence as a structural, not merely personal, problem. THREE LEVELS OF NARRATION In the script, there are three levels of narration: storytelling, Zahra’s interactions with other characters, and her memory monologues. Zahra’s storytelling guides the audience toward what the character herself wants us to see and know. This level of narration spans the entire stage space. While this section addresses the levels of narration from a scriptwriting perspective, I find it impossible to separate the text from its theatrical realization. Accordingly, I interweave elements of the production into the discussion of each narrative level. The first drafts of the script were written in English, after which I began translating the text into Arabic, initially using the Palestinian dialect. I later decided to shift to the Lebanese dialect, finalizing the script in collaboration with al-Shaykh during a trip to London. This process contributed to the script’s alienation from Palestinian audiences from the outset. In Brechtian terms, this linguistic shift functioned as a distancing device, interrupting the potential for immediate identification with the character or setting. Rather than fostering emotional immersion, the language aimed to provoke critical observation. As previously mentioned, the novel posed significant challenges to patriarchal norms and was banned across much of the Arab world. My objective in adapting the novel for the stage was to add a critical dimension: to allow the audience not only to track Zahra’s actions but also to hear her internal commentary. It was essential that the audience listen to the play’s ideas, though this had to be handled with care. As Ayat Yaghmour observed in her review: “The play included many hints that were sometimes used to avoid the explicitness of the action and not to disturb the audience, and at other times the hints were used to attract the audience, awaken their imagination and provoke their intelligence” (2020). Her comments pertain to the performance, but also highlight the way the script strategically withholds emotional resolution to encourage reflection. Rather than passively judging Zahra, viewers are encouraged to consider the social structures that surround her. In this, the production pursues transformation through critical spectatorship rather than passive empathy. The second level of narration consists of Zahra’s interactions with other characters, situated in spaces such as the family home and the sniper’s rooftop. This layer introduces dialogic tension and reveals embedded social hierarchies. It aligns with Brecht’s principle that characters should not merely express psychological interiority, but instead represent broader social forces. From this perspective, Zahra is framed as a woman attempting to escape the constraints imposed upon her, even as she remains ensnared by the violence of war and patriarchal expectations. Spatial design played a central role in supporting this tension. At first, characters moved freely across the stage, which represented the family home. After the family departs Beirut and Zahra remains behind, the stage is divided, and the city’s streets and neighborhoods begin to emerge between these spaces. This spatial reconfiguration follows Zahra’s journey as she begins to step outside the home, yet remains trapped between the male authorities in her life, her brother and the sniper, and the larger social structures represented by the community. The non-naturalistic scenography and choreographed spatial divisions invite the audience to consider their own relationship to what unfolds before them. Rather than being lulled into empathetic identification, spectators are encouraged to question. Zahra’s direct address to the audience, breaking the fourth wall, serves as another Brechtian device that foregrounds theatricality and resists illusion. The third level of narration takes the form of Zahra’s memory monologues, which shift into a distinct aesthetic register. These moments occur at the front center of the stage, within a focused circle of light, where the character confronts herself and delivers unfiltered reflections that disrupt narrative continuity. In developing the soundscape for these scenes, I collaborated with musician John Handal. Rather than conventional music, we sought an ambient, environmental texture, something that would avoid manipulating emotions and instead cultivate a space for thought. Music appears only during these memory monologues, consisting of a single, recurring note: minimal and insistent. In these instances, as Zahra faces her past in order to move forward, the sound design compels concentrated attention. The final scene collapses all three levels of narration into a single dramatic moment. Zahra is shot, and as she falls, she reveals her thoughts in her dying breath: “I close my eyes. Eyes that were never truly open. I feel the rain” (Spangler and Ghazaleh, 56). Her past and present converge. The rain, descending from above, suggests a gesture of purification. Yet rather than allowing the audience to sink into sentimentality, the production exposes the theatrical mechanism, showing how the rain effect is produced on stage. There is no catharsis. Instead, the moment is designed to agitate, directing the audience’s attention toward the structural violence and patriarchal control that have governed Zahra’s life. Tahseen Yaqeen notes this effect in his review: “Here, we will find ourselves, as we watch this creative play, wondering about the historical moment, not of the civil war, which seems not to have ended yet, but about the place here and the time, Palestine 2020?” (2020). The epic theatre techniques employed in the production, disruption of illusion, direct address, stylized scenography, and fragmentation of narrative structure, were deployed in pursuit of the alienation effect, toward the broader goal of constructing an epic feminist theatre. Iman Aoun as Fatmé (left) and Yasmin Shalaldeh as Zahra (right). Courtesy of El-Hakawati Theater. CONCLUSION This experience marked an important moment of reflection for me as a Palestinian woman and theatre artist. It offered the space to reconsider the creative journey behind The Story of Zahra and to re-examine the Brechtian and feminist theoretical frameworks that have long shaped my artistic practice, whether consciously or not. Brecht’s theory of the alienation effect has always spoken to me; his insistence on breaking theatrical conventions to expose injustice aligns with my desire to make theatre a space for social critique and transformation. At the same time, feminist theory, though I did not always name it as such, has coexisted with me throughout my life. My rebellion against patriarchal structures was never about claiming rights for women alone, but about demanding the freedom for everyone, including men in my society, to live without oppressive expectations. In adapting The Story of Zahra for the stage, I found these two theoretical lineages converging. The performance not only retold Zahra’s personal tragedy but also offered a broader feminist critique of patriarchy, war, and colonial modernity. Using Brechtian techniques, we rejected psychological realism in favor of critical distance, inviting the audience to reflect rather than simply empathize. The process of bringing this controversial and groundbreaking novel to the stage was full of challenges, but ultimately created a space where Zahra could be heard, not judged. In retrospect, this work affirmed for me that feminist epic theatre is not only possible, but necessary: a form that disrupts dominant narratives, centers women’s voices, and invites audiences into active, critical engagement with structural violence. It is through this kind of theatre, rebellious, reflective, and deeply human, that we can begin to imagine possibilities for liberation. Article Bibliography, References & Endnotes Al-Shaykh, Hanan, The Story of Zahra , London: Pan Books, 1987. Aronson-Lehavi, Sharon, Gender and Feminism in Modern Theatre . Raanana: The Open University of Israel, 2013. Larson, Charles R., “The fiction of Hanan Al-Shaykh, reluctant feminist,” World Literature Today , Jan 01. 65:1 (1991); 14-17. Butler, Judith, “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory”, in The Performance Studies Reader , second edition, Ed. Henry Bial. New York: Routledge, 2007;187-199. Diamond, Elin, “Brechtian Theory/Feminist Theory: Towards a Gestic Feminist Criticism,” in Unmaking Mimeses . New York: Routledge, 1996; 43-55. Fortier, Mark, Theory/Theatre: An Introduction , second edition, London: Routledge, 2002. Ghazaleh, Raeda, and Matthew Spangler, The Story of Zahra, unpublished script. Jerusalem: Palestinian National Theatre, 2020. Sirhan, Rabab, “The Feminist Narrative in the Lebanese War Novel: Hikayat Zahra and Bareed Beirut as a Model”, Al-Majma: Studies in Arabic language, literature and thought 19 (2024); 103-128. Spangler, Matthew. “Hanan al-Shaykh’s The Story of Zahra at the Palestinian National Theatre”, unpublished essay. Willett, John, ed. & trans., Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic, London: Methuen, 1964. American University of Beirut, Hanan al-Shaykh, aub.edu.lb , 2019 https://www.aub.edu.lb/doctorates/recipients/Pages/Hanan-al-Shaykh.aspx The Story of Zahra programme, Palestinian National Theatre, 2021. https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=4654476531253574 يقين، تحسين. "مسرحية حكاية زهرة لرائدة غزالة: البحث عن المعنى عبر جماليات تعبيرية"، أمد للإعلام ١٤-٠٣-٢٠٢٠ https://www.alwatanvoice.com/arabic/news/2020/03/14/1321900.html يغمور، آيات. "حكاية زهرة في الحرب الأهلية.. من بيروت إلى مسرح العاصمة المقدسية"، الحدث ٢٦-٠٢-٢٠٢٠ https://www.alhadath.ps/article/115485/حكاية-زهرة-في-الحرب-الأهلية-من-بيروت-إلى-مسرح-العاصمة-المقدسية References About The Author(s) Raeda Ghazaleh is a theatre director and actress, co-founder of Inad Theatre and Al-Harah Theatre in Beit Jala, where she served as artistic director until 2016. She directed and acted in many plays in Palestine, Europe, and America. Her recent productions include acting in Artificial Heart , Bethlehem Calling at the Celtic Connection music festival in Glasgow as a co-director; the Palestinian National Theatre production of The Story of Zahra , a theatrical work she adapted with the American writer Matthew Spangler from Hanan Al-Shaykh’s novel; and Jihan's Smile with Al-Harah Theatre, where she also directed Confinement; Making Senses; Do You Still Love Me?; and Hanin Al Bahar. Her theatrical acting credits include David Hare’s Stuff Happens at the Royal National Theatre in London, and most recently Other Places with Khashabi Theatre. She directed the television series Joking Seriously in 2005 and acted in television and film productions. Ghazaleh received her MA in Theatre Directing from the Central School of Speech & Drama in London where she also worked with the Royal Court Theatre, with whom she had established a playwriting connection with Palestine. Ghazaleh recently established Masahati, an independent creative space offering a refuge for like-minded artists to express themselves freely without external interventions limiting creativity and art. Arab Stages Arab Stages is devoted to broadening international awareness and understanding of the theatre and performance cultures of the Arab-Islamic world and of its diaspora. The journal appears twice yearly in digital form by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center of New York and is a joint project of that Center and of the Arabic Theatre Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Practicing Place: Site-Specific Performance and the Reinscription of Memory in Palestine Resisting the Unleashed Evils of the US- Invasion of Iraq in Amir Al-Azraki’s The Widow (2017) Dina Mousawi’s RETURN: a Compelling site of representing Women’s Status of Agency Under Occupation Renewed Awareness Toward Salvation: The Journey of The Story of Zahra from Page to Stage Site-Specific Performance and Theatrical Memorialization of the Nakba Performance Review: WAILING SONGS OF THE PAST, MIGHT THEY GROW OUR RESILIENCE. By Maya al-Khaldi. Performance Review: DUMMY IN DIASPORA. By Esho Rasho. Performance Review: ENGLISH. Written by Sanaz Toossi Performance Review: THE CAVE. By Sadieh Rifai Performance Review: IRAQ, BUT FUNNY by Atra Asdou Performance Review: COSMOS/AWALEM by Ashtar Muallem and Emile Saba. Previous Next Attribution: Entries under this journal are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Karina Gutiérrez Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 31 3 Visit Journal Homepage Memory, Transitional Justice, and Theatre in Postdictatorship Argentina. Noe Montez. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2017; Pp. 239 + xi. Karina Gutiérrez By Published on May 13, 2019 Download Article as PDF Memory, Transitional Justice, and Theatre in Postdictatorship Argentina. Noe Montez. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2017; Pp. 239 + xi. The precarious era of Argentina’s dictatorship (1976-1982) stifled political resistance and artistic expression. However, the years following the administrative regimes of Jorge Rafael Videla, Emilio Massera, and Leopoldo Galtieri prompted many people in the newly democratic Argentina to reflect upon and recoup their national identities. Noe Montez’s Memory, Transitional Justice, and Theatre in Postdictatorship Argentina considers (re)emerging individual and collective memory narratives and their effects on judicial policies in Argentina’s transitional postdictatorship period. Drawing on contemporary research in memory studies and theatre history, Montez recounts the momentous artistic reactions to policies implemented by the administrations of Carlos Menem, Néstor Carlos Kirchner Jr., and Cristina Kirchner. In so doing, Montez’s text contributes to a growing repertoire of Argentine works in the field of performance studies. As Montez himself rightly notes, the vast majority of scholarship on theatrical responses to the dictatorship tends to focus on the oeuvres of more internationally renowned playwrights such as Ricardo Bartis, Griselda Gambaro, and Eduardo Pavlovsky, whose works were staged during or directly following the dictatorship. Instead, Montez charts the trajectory of emerging directors, playwrights, actors, designers, and companies that flourished in Buenos Aires during this transitional era. Montez divides his book into four chapters, arranged chronologically to highlight theatrical productions that reacted to each administration’s approach to transitional justice and contributed to collective memory. Chapter one explores “disconstructive resistances,” a term that is never fully unpacked but appears to refer to the disjuncture between collective memory narratives and state-sanctioned memory narratives constructed and propagated by the Menem administration’s Truth and Reconciliation hearings held from 1989 to 1999. Each of the four plays that Montez examines in this chapter considers the limitations of state-sanctioned narratives of impunity, to say nothing of clemency and amnesty policies, directed toward those in office accused of human rights violations. Montez devotes a substantial amount of space to key performance groups and playwrights including El Periférico de Objetos, Javier Daulte, Marcelo Bertuccio, and Luis Cano. He describes their use of multimedia and avant-garde artistic practices to advance their political agendas; by exposing the artifice of authorized modes of remembrance, these artists resisted the Menem administration’s politics of erasure. The second chapter centers on how Teatroxlaindentidad , a long-running Buenos Aires-based theatre festival created to raise awareness about the hundreds of children kidnapped during the dictatorship, collaborated with artists to promote public access to declassified archives. Montez notes that works by Patricia Zangaro, Hector Levy-Daniel, and Mariana Eva Perez demonstrate the value of historical archives for the construction of personal and national identities. However, Montez adds a further dimension: he studies how institutional support from non-theatrical entities impacts an organization’s overall creative output and longevity. He offers as an example Teatroxlaindentidad’ s partnership with the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo. The partnership is notable because the goals of the latter imposed significant restraints on the artistic visions of the former, specifically in the earliest years of this alliance. Indeed, the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo and other stakeholders limited commissioned work in the festival’s line-up to those who spoke directly to reuniting kidnapped children with their next of kin through genetic testing. In the second half of the book, Montez attempts to capture the ideological dissonance of various agents staking claims to history. Chapter three, “Reparation, Commemoration, and Memory Construction in the Postdictatorship Generation,” looks at the importance of self-archiving or self-reflexive personal testimony as a means of talking back to state-appointed sites of memory. Of particular interest are those testimonies that “talk back” to sites established during the Néstor and Cristina Kirchner administrations (2003-2007 and 2007-2015, respectively). Montez delineates the social divide between those who favored the Kirchner administrations’ memorialization efforts and those who did not. Meanwhile, in the final chapter, Montez explores four theatrical performances produced alongside Christina Kirchner’s rebranding of the Malvinas War (also known as the Falklands War). Montez describes how the Kirchner administration sought to recast this national defeat as a point of nationalistic remembrance, shaping memory narratives of the war and the people of Malvinas. While works by Patricio Adadi, Mariana Mazover, and Lisandro Fiks critiqued Kirchner’s commemoration, Julio Cardoso’s vision fell in line with the administration’s memorialization efforts as he opted to honor veterans as heroes. The differing reactions to the Malvinas War demonstrate how acts of remembrance can be linked to acts of erasure in a variety of contradictory ways. Though Montez does not explicitly make this point, one can surmise that the opposing artistic treatments of the Falkland Islands mirror the contradictory socio-political views of these territories today. Montez’s illustration of performance and social engagement in postdictatorship Argentina highlights the nation’s vibrant and tenacious theatre scene. More importantly, his book draws attention to Argentina’s artistic agents—long neglected by U.S. scholars and theatre audiences—who are determined to grapple with identity, social justice, and individual/collective memory. Montez weaves pertinent historical content with play descriptions for what is, overall, an assessment of current artistic measures that seek to reify or contest dominant memory narratives. Scholars of Latinx theatre and performance, specifically those who concentrate on politics, will value Montez’s timely study of artistic mobilization in postdictatorship Argentina. I would, however, recommend this book be read in conjunction with texts by Diana Taylor and Jean Graham-Jones; though often cited, reading their respective theories on performance and activism firsthand may deepen understanding of Montez’s argument. Memory, Transitional Justice, and Theatre in Postdictatorship Argentina contributes to the growing archive of memory studies and, more importantly, to nuancing the fledgling U.S. awareness of Latin American performance and performance studies scholarship in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. References Footnotes About The Author(s) KARINA GUTIÉRREZ Stanford University Editorial Board for Special Issue: David Bisaha Meredith Conti Leah Lowe Inga Meier Robert Vorlicky Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Introduction: Embodied Arts Collective Choreography for Weathering Black Experience: Janelle Monáe and The Memphis "Tightrope" Dance Unruly Reproductions: The Embodied Art of Mimicry in Vaudeville "Must Be Heavyset": Casting Women, Fat Stigma, and Broadway Bodies Choreographies of the Great Departure: Building Civic Bodies in the 1914 Masque of St. Louis Defiant Indigeneity: The Politics of Hawaiian Performance. Stephanie Nohelani Teves. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018; Pp. 220. Ellen Stewart Presents: Fifty Years of La MaMa Experimental Theatre. Cindy Rosenthal. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2017; Pp. 198. In Search of Our Warrior Mothers: Women Dramatists of the Black Arts Movement. La Donna L. Forsgren. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2018; Pp. 200. Memory, Transitional Justice, and Theatre in Postdictatorship Argentina. Noe Montez. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2017; Pp. 239 + xi. Big Deal: Bob Fosse and Dance in the American Musical. Kevin Winkler. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018; Pp. 368. Historians on Hamilton: How a Blockbuster Musical Is Restaging America’s Past. Renee C. Romano and Claire Bond Potter, eds. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2018; Pp. 399. Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Arab Stages 14 Spring 2023 Volume Visit Journal Homepage Performance Review: A FAMILY THAT HAS BEEN BLOCKED By Areeg Ibrahim Published: November 26, 2023 Download Article as PDF A FAMILY THAT HAS BEEN BLOCKED. By Mustapha Shohaib. Directed by Mohamed Sobhi. Sonbol City Theatre, Egypt. Feb. 18, 2023. Reviewed by Areeg Ibrahim, Helwan University At the outskirts of Cairo, on the way to Alexandria, lies Sonbol City, a cultural complex established by prolific Egyptian actor and theater director Mohamed Sobhi (b. 1948), who named the place after a famous role he played in a television series. Sonbol City hosts the Mohamed Sobhi Theatre House, which showcases a photo gallery of Sobhi’s works before the audience enters into the auditorium of the stage. There, I recently watched the play A Family That Has Been Blocked . First performed in 2022 , A Family That Has Been Blocked is a comedy that traces changes to Egyptian family values through time. The play is written by Mustapha Shohaib and directed by Sobhi, who also plays the leading role as patriarch of a family that spans four generations, with supporting roles played by Wafaa Sadek, Kamal Attia and others. At the beginning of the play there is a mix of cinematic and theatrical tools. A screen projection plays a video showing a future time where life has been dehumanized, and humans have become more like robots. Then the scene shifts to the house of an average Egyptian family. The play follows this Egyptian family and its patriarch, Zeinhom Effendi (Mohamed Sobhi), from the time of the revolutionary figure Saad Zaghloul, who led the 1919 Revolution. The family is shown to abide by strict decorum and tradition. We follow the same family’s descendants through time until we reach the present, witnessing their deterioration in values, respect and their level of language use. One symbolic example is the willingness of the descendants to sell the family’s library and books. Another example shows the impact of technology—such as the phone, television, media and social media—on the disintegration of family relationships. One particular scene refers to the deterioration of education, to the extent that the family’s children take private lessons and memorize their lessons like a song accompanied by drum beats. The title of the play can be interpreted on several levels. First, the family members have blocked one another, dissolving the family connections. “Blocking” may also refer to the family’s neglect of the past glory of Egypt and of the family’s relationship with their ancestors. In addition, the play’s title may refer to a general societal tendency to neglect familial values. This socio-political satire draws our attention to the role of family, and didactically promotes family values while criticizing materialism, the domination of social media, and the deterioration of the educational system. Sobhi was famous for his collaborative theater work with the late playwright Lenin El-Ramly (1945- 2020). Their collaboration during the eighties produced famous comedic and political satires, such as, for example, You Are Free (1981), The Savage (1985), The Indecisive (1985), Hallucinations (1989) and Point of View (1989) . Later on, Sobhi directed and acted in a number of successful plays with Egyptian actress Simone; these included Carmen (1999), A Woman’s Plaything (2000) and The Road to Safety (2000). This play is a comedy that incorporates several songs, but its spirit is slightly different from the Lenin/ Sobhi comedic style, which was subtly satirical. Here, the play seems to be trying too hard to re-capture the previous commercially successful formula of comedy, song, political satire and nationalistic fervor. Sobhi’s directorial style depends on some physical slapstick, as well as satirizing social situations and changes in societal taste concerning the quality of music and songs. The comedic effect happens through the repetition of certain motifs and phrases that seem to slightly change across the scenes and times. For example, different scenes refer to the prices of goods and make fun of how prices have become inflated. But this comedic effect felt predictable and labored at times. The scenery also sometimes failed to evoke warmth and intimacy; this may have been intentional, however, to show the alienation of the family members and the coldness sweeping over their relationships. Despite some biting jokes about inflation and education, the play ends on a didactically nationalistic and hopeful note. Overall, A Family That Has Been Blocked is a pleasant family outing. The front of the house team at the theater is well-managed and punctual, the play is neatly blocked, and all participants appear to be well-trained and highly disciplined. Sobhi has managed to leave a mark in the history of Egyptian theater both as actor and director, and his years of theater experience show to good effect in his work. However, for this play, it may have been a better idea to train another actor in the leading role; more humor could have been created from the combination of Sobhi’s experience with the fresh perspective of a budding comedic theater talent. But Sobhi’s play is worth watching for its humor, values and professionalism. Article Bibliography, References & Endnotes References About The Author(s) Areeg Ibrahim is Professor of English and Comparative Literature and Chair of the Department of English Language and Literature at the Faculty of Arts in Helwan University, Cairo. She was the Dean of Graduate Studies and Research at Effat University, KSA in 2020. She has published widely in both Arabic and English on Arabic and international drama, and is the co-editor of a Routledge book, Rewriting Narratives in Egyptian Theatre . She has translated a number of theater books published by the National Center for Translation in Egypt. Arab Stages Arab Stages is devoted to broadening international awareness and understanding of the theatre and performance cultures of the Arab-Islamic world and of its diaspora. The journal appears twice yearly in digital form by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center of New York and is a joint project of that Center and of the Arabic Theatre Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Review: Mother Courage adapted and directed by Alison Shan Price Review of Theaters of Citizenship: Aesthetics and Politics of Avant-Garde Performance in Egypt written by Sonali Pahwa Review: Decolonizing Sarah: A Hurricane Play written and directed by Samer Al-Saber “Indigenous Avant-Gardes”: The Shiraz Arts Festival and Ritual Performance Theory in 1970s Iran Review: Baba written by Denmo Ibrahim, directed by Hamid Dehghani Review of MUKHRIJĀT AL-MASRAḤ AL-MIṢRĪ (1990-2010): DIRĀSA SĪMIYŪṬĪQĪYAH [Female Egyptian Directors (1990-2010): A Semiotic Study], written by Hadia Abd El-Fattah Review of Syrian Refugees, Applied Theater, Workshop Facilitation, and Stories: While They Were Waiting written by Fadi Skeiker Review: Layalina written by Martin Yousif Zebari, directed by Sivan Battat Up There by Wael Kadour, Introduction Review: Playwright Showcase, New Arab American Theater Works Two Giants of Egyptian Theatre: Conversations with Mohamed Abul-ʿEla El-Salamouny and Lenin El-Ramly Crossing Borders: A Theatre Practitioner’s Odyssey, An Interview with Hassan El Geretly On Writing Egypt from the Diaspora: An Interview with Adam Ashraf Elsayigh Performance Review: A FAMILY THAT HAS BEEN BLOCKED Performance Review: BETHLEHEM SITE-SPECIFIC THEATER FESTIVAL Performance Review: HOOTA. By Amer Hlehel Performance Review: LITTLE SYRIA Book Review: ACTING EGYPTIAN Book Review: MANSOUR, MONA. THE VAGRANT TRILOGY Previous Next Attribution: Entries under this journal are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Bindi Kang Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 34 2 Visit Journal Homepage Clubhouse: Stories of Empowered Uncanny Anomalies Bindi Kang By Published on May 22, 2022 Download Article as PDF Early in the spring of 2021, the New York City-based Yangtze Repertory Theatre of America (YRT) commissioned five playwrights of Chinese heritage [1] to adapt stories from Pu Songling’s 18th century Chinese classic Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio ( Liaozhai Zhiyi ), one of the most popular and celebrated works in Sinophone [2] culture. Later that year, these modern one-act play adaptations were performed together in a virtual program called Clubhouse or Liao Zhai , a name that means “a studio where people chat” and resonates with the social media platform Clubhouse. Producing such a project, YRT intended to build a network for Asian/American [3] theatre practitioners and to express a shared reaction of concern, anger, and vulnerability to the long history of anti-Asian violence—from both individuals and political administrations—that has resurged since the COVID–19 pandemic. After providing background on YRT, I discuss the emotions we shared in the creative process, and then provide an analysis of the five adaptations from premodern Chinese literature to the contemporary American stage. Ultimately, I argue that the transition of narrative persona in these adaptations is a subversive and empowering gesture: the playwrights of Chinese heritage identify with the anomalies, return to Chinese theatre traditions, and present a mixture of human world and underworld for the ghost characters to take back their subjectivity and to speak their needs. With Clubhouse , YRT hoped to continue their mission of developing and strengthening a supportive network among Asian/American theatre artists. Founded by Sister Joanna Chan in 1992, YRT has been a “welcoming home” for newly arrived artists, “supporting them to launch their professional careers in NYC.” [4] In Chan’s words, theatre should be a tool to “promote social well-being in the community.” [5] Under her leadership, YRT also staged important productions such as the world premiere of Between Life and Death by Nobel laureate Gao Xingjian. The company’s social mission continued after Chongren Fan (as artistic director) and Sally Shen (as executive director) took over in 2017. Their works embrace the power of theatre as a live and unmediated public venue, to bond and serve the Asian immigrant community of New York City through providing cultural education, promoting diverse cultural values, and discussing current social issues from the perspective of Asian immigrants. When discussing whom to commission for the Clubhouse project, YRT “want[s] to work with writers who are bilingual and US-based, writers who are from our generation and share the same cultural upbringing (Chinese heritage), and writers who are genuinely interested about the concept.” [6] In the commission offer, the theatre wrote: “After a year of total isolation, grief of loss, and an acute yearning for human connection, we hope this program will bring healing powers to everyone.” [7] At our first roundtable on March 14, 2021, the “acute yearning for human connection” was satisfied as the nine team members gathered from all over the United States via Zoom, including the producer Sally Shen; the director Chongren Fan; five playwrights Stefani Kuo, Yilong Liu, Livian Yeh, Minghao Tu, and Han Tang; cultural consultant Xiaoyi Huang; and me, the dramaturg. Besides discussing the context of Strange Tales and adaptation possibilities, we were excited about this new community with similar expatriate experiences: all of us were born and raised in mainland China, Hong Kong, or Taiwan and later came to study and stay in the US as theatre professionals. At the end of our first meeting, we were awash in smiles: our longing to find and fortify a community of newly transplanted theatre practitioners had been fulfilled. Two days later, the traumatic mass shooting in Atlanta targeting Asian women brought our collective joy into “a lot of emotions—fear, anger, frustration, pain, and possibly, confusion.” [8] What was the most painful, however, was our somewhat unsurprised reaction: based on all the harmful stereotypes of Asians especially with racial fetishization, we knew that this tragedy was one additional note in the long history of racist violence in the United States. Early evidence includes the Page Act of 1875, which “banned the importation of Asian Women, [being] feared to be engaging in prostitution in the country, whether they were or not.” [9] Throughout the years, the images of “the hypersexual but docile Asian woman really took hold in America.” [10] These emotions and histories pervaded our plays. Among the five works, Han Tang’s dramatic poem Ghost Story takes on an explicit point of view from the female ghosts: A Ghostly existence Called upon for necessity and ignored in presence We were traded, used, raped and killed, and denied records […] Sexualized by men, serving their muses, wallflowers, toys Sprinkled in their stories as garnishes And blamed for their sins and evils. [11] Juxtaposing the ghost’s and Asian American women’s identities, Tang articulates the fetishized stereotypes cast upon them and the suffering they have experienced. Sharing a similar sense of restless anger and helpless vulnerability, Stefani Kuo’s play my dead husband bought a gun and came for me today starts with an Asian woman who just returned from her husband’s funeral. While listening to the mourning and crying in a self-help group full of recently widowed women, she hears a gun click; her late husband brought a gun and came to find her. At the end of the play, the audience learns that the narrative persona was the victim of gendered anti-Asian violence— another act of gendered anti-Asian violence. As stated above, this should never be examined as an isolated incident—it is one of the many cases in which Asian women are seen as a “temptation [that] leads to murder, […] because of the gendered racialization of Asian women as villainous temptresses, a paradoxical ‘controlling image’ that renders them sexually desirable [and] a threat to the social order and thereby expendable.” [12] Livian Yeh’s piece Stacy in the States pushes the notion of the strange into thrilling horror. Pu Songling’s original tale is a young scholar’s bildungsroman of how he eventually passes the imperial-level civic exams with a fox-fairy’s assistance. Yeh turns the beautiful fox-fairy into Stacy, a young girl from Taiwan, who is an impeccable housewife of a seemingly perfect woman and who also works as a social media influencer, seeing her followers as her “family” (“because I have no family in the States” [13] ). But her relationship is full of manipulation and betrayal, and the episode ends with Stacy live-streaming a cooking show in which her hands and face are covered with her husband’s blood. Yilong Liu’s piece Do You Still H8 Me adapts Pu Songling’s The Forty Strings of Cash . A newborn child collects money that his father owed him in the previous life, and the child dies as soon as the debt is cleared. Liu focuses on the complex generational relationship, presenting a pregnant Molly, whose unborn baby is her reincarnated mother. Molly hires a psychic for an online exorcism, during which her mother’s spirit talks in Molly’s body. Day 364. The Scaled Boy by Minghao Tu extends this motif of identity transformation to an extreme. For the entire play, the scaled boy suffers from a strange skin disease and is therefore tightly covered in black fabric from head to toe. He has been painting a perfect skin for himself, hoping to be freed from his disease and pain once he puts on the new skin. Coincidentally, each contemporary playwright switched the narrative persona from the original male narrator in the 18th century stories to the “exotic others,” i.e. the uncanny anomalies: fox fairies, ghosts, and immortals—reanimated corpses and reincarnated spirits. I interpret this artistic choice as the creators exploring their Asian/American expatriate identity in the US Akin to the anomalies in Pu Songling’s original text, the images of Asian/Americans—from characters to casts—are often presented on the American stage as invisible or passive objects, constantly being gazed at, manipulated, and consumed. Angela Pao asks in a review of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2012 production of The Orphan of Zhao , a production that triggered backlash over intercultural adaptations and yellowface: “But why is that, whether on stage or in society, East Asians as an ethnic minority are considered uniquely qualified to play their parts silently and make their contributions invisibly? Why should they haunt the peripheries as ghosts rather than occupy center stage as living, speaking human beings?” [14] Concurrently, the ghosts in Chinese culture and Asian/Americans in the racist ideology of yellow peril have terrifying powers gained from the underworld: immortality, sexual seductiveness, and the ability to disguise. Therefore, the transition of narrative persona in all five episodes of Clubhouse is a subversive and empowering gesture: by identifying with the anomalies of Chinese theatre traditions, the narrators and expatriate playwrights reclaim their power in both this supernatural world and the anti-Asian world of the US. While the depictions of anomalies in Chinese literature suggest fear of the unknown underworld, ghost figures in classical Chinese theatre always take the center stage, appearing in a solid form no different from that of living human beings. Having been a popular subject matter in Chinese literary history, the anomalies in the specific genre called zhi guai (literally meaning “records of anomalies”) often cater to a desire for exotic novelty. As Robert Ford Campany puts it in Strange Writing , “anomaly is inherently a matter of the discrimination of kinds or domains of objects, beings or states, and of the boundaries between them. On the face of it, the anomalous is that which is taken by an observer or speaker as crossing some boundary.” [15] The English word “strange” can refer to three related Chinese words, guai , yi , and qi . [16] When the YRT artists translated yi in Pu Songling’s work to “strange” in English, this word positioned the “anomalies” as a discriminated-against other who resides outside of a social normality . These dynamics of literally and metaphorically estranging Asian/Americans reflect anti-Asian racism and representation on the American stage. Asian people are often portrayed as ghosts and fantasy figures—being “othered” and excluded from the reality and normality of American society. Figured as pollutants, as the “yellow peril,” they wield threatening powers. They constitute both an “abjective matter”—in the words of Julia Kristeva and Karen Shimakawa—as well as an exotic other. [17] In contrast to Orientalist images, the Chinese classical stage granted anomalies subjectivity and certainty. They usually have clear purposes for remaining in the human world after death, either to seek social justice (as in Snow in Midsummer ) or to continue a forbidden true-love relationship (as in The Peony Pavilion ). Moreover, from costume to movement, these anomalies look no different from other human characters. They can even make their request at court, the very place that requires legitimacy in identity. Similar to Jessica Nakamura’s analysis of ghosts and the underworld in noh theatre, the Chinese classical stage “brings the spirit or nonhuman into visibility, […] offers a mode of recognizing the nonhuman […], includ[ing] listening to its perspective and needs.” [18] The playwrights of Clubhouse returned to traditional Chinese theatre, identified themselves with the anomalies, and empowered the anomalies to take back their subjectivity as storytellers, thus making their needs visible. As Han Tang wrote, “From ancient cultures we came / Exuding wisdom and Grace / Landing in the West / Announcing our existence / Claiming our space our rights our legacy.” [19] Although this Chinese tradition of anomalies affirms the identities of these characters and, by extension, the expatriate playwrights, the authors do not have firm footholds in either their Sinophone culture of origin or the American cultural space in which they live. For all five playwrights, the ambiguous space between these two sides is marked by feelings of detachment and disconnection. In Do You H8 Me , Molly has been cut off from her family of origin for years. In both Stacy in the States and my dead husband bought a gun and came for me today , communities exist only on social media platforms and are thus abstract and virtual . Due to the plays being solo pieces performed online with modest filming resources, there was not enough material support to present homes with crowds at locales overseas realistically. Another issue is that these projects were developed in reaction to anti-Asian violence, and hence, their motifs ascribe more weight to identity exploration and self-reflection. Finally, I would like to propose an additional factor that shaped these adaptations toward uncanny anomalies: artists of Chinese heritage tend to avoid explicit portrayals of their culture because of rising Sinophobia in the States. As a dramaturg and a scholar from China, I have noticed that often, when I compose creative or scholarly work about my homeland, I seek an “appropriate” positionality. I constantly wonder how I can voice my real Chinese experience without worrying that I will be accused of being “brain-washed” when my story presents a positive image of China. When my work critiques Chinese policies and systems, I worry that it will be decontextualized, misinterpreted, and manipulated into another superficial spectacle of “yellow peril.” I believe this struggle and everlasting concern are quite common among Chinese scholars and artists. But we did not have to face such concerns and struggles during the creation of Clubhouse. Because of our similar expatriate identity, we were free from self-censorship. It was indeed a rare experience that we used Mandarin, our mother tongue, as our primary language despite the professional environment in the US. [20] It was also rare for me as a dramaturg to be free from the laborious work of avoiding misrepresentation and misinterpretation. This made our Clubhouse experience a treasured one. Bonding through theatre has always been a mission of the YRT. It is a compelling political act in our sociopolitical moment. It freed us—the expatriates, the anomalies, the strange racial others—to collectively take back our subjectivity and to speak, defend, and celebrate ourselves on the American stage. References [1] “Writers of Chinese heritage” is the expression that our production team developed after careful consideration, intended to focus on the culture shared by all participants. [2] The term “Sinophone” in this essay refers to “Chinese/Sinitic Language” in linguistic practice and literature tradition, regardless of the political mapping as suggested in Shu-mei Shih’s critique, which casts sinophone literature as the writing in “Sinistic-language communities and their expressions […] on the margins of nations and nationalness in the internal colonies and other minority communities in China as well as outside it” because “present day China largely inherited and consolidated in a continuous colonial project.” See Shih Shu-mei, “The Concept of the Sinophone,” PMLA 126, no. 3 (May 2011): 709-718. This article does not intend to overlook existing geo-political tensions but emphasizes a collectivity with a group of Asian/Americans out of a shared literary cannon and a popular cultural phenomenon. [3] Inspired by Dylan Rodríguez’s article, I use the term “Asian/American” to refer to people racialized as “Asian” in the US. I avoid using terms such as new immigrant or first-generation because they imply residency, political, and national identity statuses that I do not intend. I believe our shared intercultural and diasporic experiences are more important than our political identities (even though permanent residency and citizenship are crucial to most new expatriating artists). See Dylan Rodríguez, “The ‘Asian Exception’ and the Scramble for Legibility: Toward an Abolitionist Approach to Anti-Asian Violence,” Society & Space , https://www.societyandspace.org/articles/the-asian-exception-and-the-scramble-for-legibility-toward-an-abolitionist-approach-to-anti-asian-violence. [4] “Our Story — Yangtze Repertory Theatre of America.” Yangtze Repertory Theatre of America, https://www.yzrep.org/our-story (accessed 9 November 2021). [5] Esther K. Lee, A History of Asian American Theatre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 104, 110. [6] Sally Shen, interview by author, email, 24 March 2022. [7] Sally Shen and Chongren Fan, Email message to commissioned writers, 1 March 2021. [8] Chongren Fan and Sally Shen, Email message to the production team, 19 March 2021. [9] Rachel Ramirez, “The History of Fetishizing Asian Women,” Vox, last modified 19 March 2021, https://www.vox.com/22338807/asian-fetish-racism-atlanta-shooting. [10] Ibid. [11] Han Tang, Ghost Stories , in Clubhouse , dir. Chongren Fan, Yangtze Repertory Theatre, 2021. [12] Maria C. Hwang and Rhacel S. Parreñas, “The Gendered Racialization of Asian Women as Villainous Temptresses.” Gender & Society 35, no. 4 (2021), 567-576. Concept of “controlling image” is cited from Patricia Hill Collins. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment (New York: Routledge, 1990) [13] Livian Yeh, Stacy in the States in Clubhouse , dir. Chongren Fan, Yangtze Repertory Theatre, 2021. [14] Angela Pao, “The Red and the Purple: Reflections on the Intercultural Imagination and Multicultural Casting,” Contemporary Theatre Review 24, no. 4 (2014): 467-474. [15] Robert F. Campany, Strange Writing: Anomaly Accounts in Early Medieval China (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1996), 2. [16] In Chinese: guai 怪， yi 异， qi 奇. [17] See Julia Kristeva, Pouvoirs de L’horreur (English) (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982); Karen Shimakawa, National Abjection: The Asian American Body Onstage (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002). [18] Jessica Nakamura, “Against the Flows of Theory: Expanding the Ghost with Japanese No,” Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism 35, no. 2 (2021): 151-169. [19] Han Tang, Ghost Stories , in Clubhouse , dir. Chongren Fan, Yangtze Repertory Theatre, 2021. [20] Interestingly, there were moments when we couldn’t find the correct word in Chinese, and so we had to switch to English. Our expatriate identity is confirmed in bilingual conversations: we fluently speak Mandarin in everyday settings, while English as our professional language is also integral to our experience. Footnotes About The Author(s) Bindi Kang is a dramaturg and scholar now based in Lincoln, Nebraska. She is a doctoral candidate in the Theatre and Performance program at the Graduate Center, CUNY, and teaches at University of Nebraska-Lincoln as a temporary lecturer. Her research specializations encompass East Asian and Asian American theatre and performances as well as performance of everyday life and its intersections with contemporary digital culture. Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Embodied Reckonings: “Comfort Women,” Performance and Transpacific Redress The Interdisciplinary Theatre of Ping Chong: Exploring Curiosity and Otherness Love Dances: Loss and Mourning in Intercultural Collaboration Introduction to Asian American Dramaturgies Behind the Scenes of Asian American Theatre and Performance Studies On Young Jean Lee in Young Jean Lee's We're Gonna Die by Christine Mok Representation from Cambodia to America: Musical Dramaturgies in Lauren Yee’s Cambodian Rock Band The Dramaturgical Sensibility of Lauren Yee’s The Great Leap and Cambodian Rock Band Holding up a Lens to the Consortium of Asian American Theaters and Artists: A Photo Essay Theatre in Hawaiʻi: An “Illumination of the Fault Lines” of Asian American Theatre Randall Duk Kim: A Sojourn in the Embodiment of Words Reappropriation, Reparative Creativity, and Feeling Yellow in Generic Ensemble Company’s The Mikado: Reclaimed Dance Planets Dramaturgy of Deprivation (없다): An Invitation to Re-Imagine Ways We Depict Asian American and Adopted Narratives of Trauma Clubhouse: Stories of Empowered Uncanny Anomalies Off-Yellow Time vs Off-White Space: Activist Asian American Dramaturgy in Higher Education Asian American Dramaturgies in the Classroom: A Reflection Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

European Stages serves as an inclusive English-language journal, providing a detailed perspective on the unfolding narrative of contemporary European theatre since 1969. Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back European Stages 20, 2025 Volume Visit Journal Homepage Interview with Walter Bart (Artistic Leader, Wunderbaum Collective & Director, Die Hundekot-Attacke) from the 2024 Berliner Theatertreffen Published: July 1, 2025 Download Article as PDF By Steve Earnest Image Credits: Article Interview with Walter Bart, Artistic Leader of Wunderbaum Collective and Director of Die Hundekot-Attacke from the 2024 Berliner Theatertreffen Wunderbaum, Co-creators of Die Hundekot-Attacke at Theaterhaus Jena Walter Bart was born in Rotterdam in 1978 and completed his training as an actor at Toneelacademie Maastricht in 2001. In the same year, he founded the collective Wunderbaum with Maartje Remmers, Wine Dierickx, Marleen Scholten and Matijs Jansen (they were later joined by stage designer Maarten von Otterdijk), and together they created more than 50 productions over the past 22 years. Wunderbaum collaborated with Johan Simon’s company Hollandia and with NTGent before the collective joined up with Theater Rotterdam in 2010. Theater Rotterdam continues to be Wunderbaum’s basis today. From 2018 to 2022, Wunderbaum formed the team of directors of Theaterhaus Jena. With Wunderbaum, Walter Bart created theatre for the main and the small stage as well as other venues across the city. They developed concepts, directed and performed. The collective’s most recent productions include “Alfa Romeo”, “Wunderbaum spielt LIVE, online läuft es schief” (both in 2024), “La Cordista”, “Der Platz” and “Die Hundekot-Attacke”, a co-production with Theaterhaus Jena that was invited to the 2024 Theatertreffen. About the Incident in Question In February 2023 Choreographer and Ballet Leader of Hannover Opera Marco Goeke walked up to critic Wiebke Hüster , confronted her about a scathing review she had published about his new work “In the Dutch Mountains” the day before. Angered about her comments, Goeke then pulled out a back of dog excrement (from his pet dachsund) and violently smeared it all over Hüster’s face. The police and authorities then got involved and Goeke, a rising star in the German dance scene, was first suspended and later removed from his post as Director of the Hannover Ballet. The incident made national news across Europe (as well as the New York Times ). The Hannover Ballet stated that Goeke’s impulsive and violent actions damaged both Ms. Hüster as well as the reputation of the company itself. The incident was universally condemned as an attack on the freedom of the press. ES: So your background, you're now the artistic director of Theaterhaus Jena? WB: No, no, I used to be, until 2020. But together with my group, Wunderbaum, we are an actors' collective from the Netherlands. And we are based in Rotterdam, in Theater Rotterdam. And then we read that this theater was looking in 2018 for a new artistic direction, or a new artistic leader. ES: And they specifically asked for a collective to apply for the leadership role? To come in as a group of people leading? WB: Yeah, a group of people. They wanted a group of people. Not just one, and that's kind of like the way this theater, the background of this theater is. They like to work as a... Yeah, and it has partly to do with the history of it, because it was torn down. I will give you a book of the history of the theater house, it's pretty interesting. It's like, after the wall came down, they... I mean, the whole East was like... Kind of like, they didn't know in what direction to go, of course. So, they were all kind of... And all the money was gone. All the money was gone, so they were really poor. And they tried to... They invited a group from the Ernst Busch, in 1990s, 91. And that's a group of actors from the Ernst Busch Schule in Berlin, and they... it was a class from the Ernst Busch who took over this theater. . So the leaders of this theater, they just drove there, and they said to a few actors, come over to Jena, you'll get the whole theater, and do what you want. ES: It sounds like an excellent opportunity for a group of young actors studying theatre to finish their last year in this situation. Was it? WB: It was okay. But there was not a lot of money. And they got a... Good luck.Yeah, good luck. And the theater was really run down. It was really terrible., like a mess. And I'll show you later the building. And then... So there is something like this situation in the DNA of the house, there's a strong collective vibe. And then it's also led by a group of... They call them... It means like some sort of a board. But in the board are also technicians, for example, from the theater. And they decide of the future, so they choose the next people. And so for that reason, I think the theater also always had like a collective background. And then they asked us to come and we... But we are an actors' collective, so we are six actors. It's funny, we worked quite a lot in the U.S. as well, as a group. ES: So has your company visited the USA? WB: We did two, three co-productions with the Red Cat Theater in Los Angeles. The Red Cat. It's Mark Murphy. There's so many theaters in Los Angeles. It's part of the Disney Theater. It's the Red Cat. And then we went to play in Austin in the Fusebox Festival a few times. And in New York also in a theater. And we did... Yeah, Detroit. We've been in the U.S. quite a while. But never in Carolina. It's a pity. No, no, no. Maybe Atlanta would be the closest. The U.S. is so huge. So the actors are also involved in decisions about how they run the theater. And now this group, the actors, and my girlfriend, who's a director, and our set designer, do it till this summer. And then we moved to Berlin. But Wunderbaum stays in Rotterdam. But I moved to Berlin. And then they asked me as a director to do this piece. So they invited me again. ES: So what about this piece? I wanted to know how you developed this project. WB: Obviously, it was a big story at first. Yeah, exactly. So it's kind of like... Why make a play out of this? I always thought... Because a lot of people didn't know how to talk about it. And I kind of liked that about it. Because you felt there was a huge insecurity. Because of course the press framed it pretty fast as an attack on the freedom of speech. And then you felt on the artistic side, people who deal with critics, they think, okay, what can I say about it? The image of somebody putting... Yeah, it's so extreme. And all the time you... I felt there was such much... People were so uncomfortable to talk about it. So, there was not an honest talking about it. t's also like... And for me that kind of fitted in the time. I think in this time there's a lot of subjects. And I think it certainly has to do with Corona. It also has to do with politics. That I felt there's a lot of topics where people don't immediately say there, open your mouth. It's like immediately... And not in the first conversation. But say, okay, are you a Trump voter? Or are you a Biden voter? Or are you a pro this or pro Corona? Believe me, that's a big problem. I know, of course. We follow the American politics day by day. I'm hooked on it, unfortunately. It's stupid. Make a play about that. Yeah. I think Americans have to do it themselves. It's already a play. ES: It is. We're living it. WB: But then I felt like this kind of discomfort, is that a word? Where you don't know how to talk. And I thought that was in this subject a lot. Because it's kind of like... You didn't know what to say about it, actually. Or you don't know. People were not like... And then I thought that... So it would be great to... Because it's so difficult to talk about it. But then theater is the best place also to talk about it. Because it happened in a theater. ES: What actually happened in the theater and how did you guys make the piece? WB: It happened in a theatre in Hanover, the incident. So, then we made the concept about the theater. And I did it before with Wunderbaum. And that piece played also in the United States. Which one now? It's called Looking for Paul . And it also won in Edinburgh. We won a big theater award for it. And it is about... It was the same concept. It is a group of actors who want to make a piece. But they end up in a fight. So they don't make it to the premiere. And they fail. So they don't... But that's in fiction. It's like... We play a group of actors. We're developing a play. And they don't succeed. And in the end, they decide to read the emails they wrote each other during the rehearsal process. So, it's like this meta. So, it's a group of actors reading emails. About why they didn't succeed. And then you follow this group of actors and all their thoughts. And I knew that this way of having more perspectives on one subject and blurring the line of fiction and reality. WB: So, it's kind of like a pseudo-documentary work. Because the actors use their own names and use real stuff and mix it with fiction. And then I thought it's also a great way to... It's on reality TV now. Everybody is so interested in that, but I don't understand that. Not, exactly. We cringe at Survivor . ES: I can't believe that. My wife likes to watch The Bachelor . WB: I would leave the room to watch The Bachelor . It's terrible. What is it? The Bachelor . This married idiot. This young single idiot wants to date all these girls. It's so stupid. And the women are like, Oh, he's so sweet. I'm like, shut up. It's funny. ES: This totally took over our culture. I wonder why. WB: Yeah, me too. I think it will go away. I hope so. It's like zombies. ES: It's like zombies. They just came and took everything. And now, please go. WB: Well, of course, in a way, I think TikTok took over. I mean, the younger generation is, of course, watching TikTok. And it's the same. What I like about TikTok is hat's reality TV. Everybody can produce it. So, it's getting easier and easier. I read this Michael Cohen thing. I read it every day. This process that's happening now. He said, no, I'm going on TikTok at night. When I'm tired and I want to lose stress, I go on TikTok. And then he goes on TikTok saying these stupid things, you know, about this process. He also has this trouble that he's saying too much about the process. I don't know. But it's legal. ES: He can do this. Yeah, he can do it. Freedom of speech. WB: Exactly. But I'm so surprised people do that. I would never, like, at night when I cannot sleep, go live. Or maybe you've been drinking or something. You say things. Yeah, I would be way too scared. But that's kind of funny as well, that these people see this reality. I don't know. They don't care. ES: So how did you develop the script? Just by improv? WB: We started writing in the reality. As a group. We wrote it together, which is the great thing about it. And then, so we knew that when we would, and we did the writing together with a reality timeline of what happened for real. So, we knew when we would do the press release of it, that there would be a lot of reactions. And we wanted to have these reactions in the writing. So we did the press release that we were going to make it. And then we, everything that happened, we used in writing. So, we had characters. And these characters, yeah, they write about their perspective, with the reality of the incident as a background. And then the joke was that they, because nobody comes to Jena, besides theatre critics. There's a lot of times we don't get a lot of critics, because it's in the province. In the story, there's only one newspaper following us. It's the local Thuringer Zeitung. And they, it's very hard to get attention from other newspapers. And then we thought if we do this topic, that's the storyline. The actors think, hey, when we make a piece with this topic, maybe more press will come. So let me ask you though, before we go forward. ES: So, who are the actors? Are they playing themselves as actors, inviting the press? Or who are they? WB: They are the actors from the theater. Actors from the company. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, they play themselves. But they play themselves. Because what they play is, they develop characters out of this. And they just decide to, as a group, they decide to take this on as a project. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And in the fiction, I'm not part of the fiction. So there is, in the fiction, there's no director. Okay. So they develop it as a collective. Okay. Because we thought it was more interesting. Not to have the dynamic of it. Not to have the director in it. But that's also how we work, in a way. Because all the material you would make. Because everybody is the director, in a way. Yeah, exactly. ES: Are you in the show? WB: No, I'm not. But that's what, Wunderbaum and my collective, we all direct. And we are all directors. So, there's no hierarchy. Maybe you, I don't know if it's... ES: No, I understand fully. I know groups like this. Yeah, it's like... And sometimes that's the best way to work. WB: But sometimes... it sucks. (laughs) But sometimes it's more efficient. You direct it. Everybody does this. We got three weeks. Shut up and listen to him. Or whatever. You do whatever. Exactly. That's exactly how we work. Exactly. It's what works best. And then, that was kind of the joke in it. That they don't have a job anymore next year. Because this is the last production they make here. Oh, I saw that in the script. Okay, this is gonna be our last show here. Yeah, so this is the last show. It's not really, it's not totally true. Because now they rehearse for another. There's gonna be one more summer production. But... We play, it's the last season. Next year they are all jobless. So, they don't have work next year. ES: Really? WB: Yes, that's the truth. So, they are all jobless next year. And that's why we thought it might be good to get as much press as possible for this thing. ES: Well, getting in the Theatertreffen is a good gig. WB: Exactly. So that's also playing with it. They also try in the script, they also say maybe if we make this, the Theatertreffen will come. So, the Theatertreffen is even part of the script. So we were kind of... And then it kind of like, how it developed. So how it developed, it developed in the best possible way. Reality. So yeah, that's it. And then we decided to dance. So there is like a dance part in it. Because it's also about the dance world. Because it's of course about a choreographer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, there's a dance sequence, okay. We worked with a choreographer. And he taught us how to dance. Modern dance, and in their rehearsals, they dance. They work on a dancing show. And in the end of the emails, they present this dance material they rehearsed. That you will see. So, it's first emails, reading, and then dancing. And it's the idea that the dance is bad, so the critic also says, this sucks, you know, so they all want to... Well, they tried to really dance, so we worked with a real choreographer. We tried to make the dance not ironical. But of course, it's a really bad dance. I mean, to the standards of modern dance, it's not good. But they worked hard on it. And in the characters, they try to... In the dances, they also try to tell the story with dance. The story of what happened. The story of the incident. The story of the incident they try to tell in the dance. Is told in the dance. And it was good because it's way more abstract. Because of course, there's a lot of like... You cannot... The incident itself on stage would be very... I don't know, not that interesting. And also not tasteful. I mean, for the critic, it's a lot about taste as well. What words do you use if you want to... And of course, there's a lot of discussion also in German theater about reproducing things. So, you would reproduce a violent act. Do you want to do that? No. ES: Why do you think this work is important? WB: Oh, God, I really don't know. ES: Well, do you think the questions about the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press... WB: No, not totally. But I think it's very much about... Or what can the theater express? No, I think it's about the periphery and the center. So, it's like where the center is. It's in a theatre in Berlin, in Germany. And what's the periphery? How do you call it? Is that a word? What's outside the center? The work is about where the center of everything is, right? Yeah, I think that's it. And they try to get... And these actors, they are very aware that they are not in the center. ES: And they try to become the center? Okay, I understand. WB: Yeah, they try. They know that we need... And in that way, it's... Yeah, it's about where is the center and what's important and what do we think as actors or as theater makers is important. And that's, I think, the main question and how we function in this media is also a big topic because we found out when we did it that we're like... You have this DPA, Meldung , it's called in Germany. And I know it's... I think you will have it in America as well that when you do like a press thing and then it goes to all media. So, you have like, you write something, and it goes to all news channels. ES: A press release? WB: Yeah. Yeah, but then a press release... normally when we do a press release with theater it doesn't end on the front page of all newspapers. But now it did. Okay. So we got like... And then we found out how this media works. And they... Because the word dogshit is in it, people click on it because they are interested in the story of the dogshit. So people want to read that. So it's also a lot about how media functions and how attention works. It's pretty inevitable to talk about. It's like so much... about how these media function. They have this clickbait thing so that journalists also get paid for how many clicks they have. Of course, I mean, it's also this... I think it's this Trump thing. Of course, the drama. Every article where there is Trump in it, people click on it. ES: Really? People are that... You think people outside of the USA are interested to know what's going on with Trump? WB: Totally. Yeah. That's fascinating. It's like... But it's like a real-life show. It's like the biggest entertainment there is. Like the president... Wow. The porn star. It's like better than The Bachelor . I thought it was only... USA late-night talk hosts. They always talk about Trump. I'm like, what are they going to do when he's gone? Because that's where they get all their material. They're talking about Trump. ES: Yeah, yeah. I think they're happy that he's back. Because now they know what to talk about again. WB: Yeah. I mean... I mean, how are they going to talk about... I don't know. About migrants at the Mexican border. But then... Without Trump. Exactly. That's... That's the whole... I mean, you know... Because you see it here. You see a little bit in Germany. Of the migration. References References About the author(s) Steve Earnest is a Professor of Theatre at Coastal Carolina University . He was a Fulbright Scholar in Nanjing, China during the 2019 – 2020 academic year where he taught and directed works in Shakespeare and Musical Theatre. A member of SAG-AFTRA and AEA, he has worked professionally as an actor with Performance Riverside, The Burt Reynolds Theatre, The Jupiter Theatre, Candlelight Pavilion Dinner Theatre, The Colorado Shakespeare Festival, Birmingham Summerfest and the Riverside Theatre of Vero Beach, among others. Film credits include Bloody Homecoming , Suicide Note and Miami Vice . His professional directing credits include Big River , Singin’ in the Rain and Meet Me in St. Louis at the Palm Canyon Theatre in Palm Springs, Musicale at Whitehall 06 at the Flagler Museum in Palm Beach and Much Ado About Nothing with the Mountain Brook Shakespeare Festival. Numer ous publications include a book, The State Acting Academy of East Berlin , published in 1999 by Mellen Press, a book chapter in Performer Training, published by Harwood Press, and a number of articles and reviews in academic journals and periodicals including Theatre Journal, New Theatre Quarterly, Western European Stages, The Journal of Beckett Studies and Backstage West . He has taught Acting, Movement, Dance, and Theatre History/Literature at California State University, San Bernardino, the University of West Georgia , the University of Montevallo and Palm Beach Atlantic University. He holds a Ph.D. in Theatre from the University of Colorado, Boulder and an M.F.A. in Musical Theatre from the University of Miami, FL. European Stages European Stages, born from the merger of Western European Stages and Slavic and East European Performance in 2013, is a premier English-language resource offering a comprehensive view of contemporary theatre across the European continent. With roots dating back to 1969, the journal has chronicled the dynamic evolution of Western and Eastern European theatrical spheres. It features in-depth analyses, interviews with leading artists, and detailed reports on major European theatre festivals, capturing the essence of a transformative era marked by influential directors, actors, and innovative changes in theatre design and technology. European Stages is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents The 2025 Festival International New Drama (FIND) at Berlin Schaubühne Editor's Statement - European Stages Volume 20 Willem Dafoe in conversation with Theater der Zeit The Puzzle: A new musical in the Spoleto Festival, Italy presented by La MaMa Umbria Varna Summer International Theatre Festival Mary Said What She Said The 62nd Berliner Theatertreffen: Stories and Theatrical Spaces That Realize the Past, Present and Future. Interview with Walter Bart (Artistic Leader, Wunderbaum Collective & Director, Die Hundekot-Attacke) from the 2024 Berliner Theatertreffen Duende and Showbiz: A Theatrical Odyssey Through Spain’s Soul Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Jared Strange Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 35 2 Visit Journal Homepage Meet Me Where I Am: New Play Dispatches from the DC Area Jared Strange By Published on May 11, 2023 Download Article as PDF For most Americans, the mere mention of “the DMV” summons nightmares of bureaucratic deadlock. For residents of the DC-Maryland-Virginia metropolitan area such as myself, it means something like home—though living a few Metro stops away from the seat of the federal government means deadlock is never far from mind. Apart from residing in the shadow of the Capitol, our DMV is characterized by a curiously disconnected sense of place. For my part, much of that has to do with the University of Maryland, my institutional home in a DC pseudo-suburb otherwise known for housing the local IKEA. Some of it has to do with the peculiarities of the District, which has outgrown its exclusively federal designation and stubbornly progressed through stages of self-rule, though not to the point where it is always clear who is in charge. As in most places, the pandemic affected this DMV in unique ways, and as in most places, theatre artists responded in turn. One of the signature issues artists faced was how to meet people where they are—a troublesome prospect in the DMV even before the advent of the pandemic. In the autumn of 2019, a group of artists came together at the urging of playwrights Jennifer Barclay and Tim J. Lord to address that challenge by leveraging the area’s significant but disparate new play development faculties. The new collective, later to be known as District Dramatists, gathered under auspicious signs at the REACH, a sparkling new space at the Kennedy Center. Optimism ran high, though the challenge of serving artists through decentralized leadership without overburdening volunteers quickly proved an obstacle. The arrival of lockdown, coupled with the furlough of our Kennedy Center advocates, brought that obstacle into especially stark relief, and ended our experiment prematurely. The dissolution of District Dramatists foreshadowed aspects of new play development, and our very artform itself, that would demand consideration over the coming years: the dynamics of space in the time of social distancing and the material needs of artists in a time of social reckoning. Unsurprisingly, the opportunities and limitations of digital space were a significant factor in navigating the first two years of the pandemic. The University of Maryland became a trailblazer in this regard when it transitioned an in-person production of Qui Nguyen’s D&D-centric play She Kills Monsters to the Zoom room under the guidance of media specialist and digital champion Jared Mezzocchi and co-director Lisa Nathans. The move quickly established and tested the rules of Zoom theatre. Over time, many artists adopted similar models, producing everything from daring new works such as FakeFriends’ Circle Jerk to small companies such as Theatre in Quarantine. The DMV also became a hive for new play development programming that sought to recreate the rehearsal space in the Zoom room, often with mixed results. In my own developmental work with Rorschach Theatre Company and UMD’s Fearless New Play Festival, I found myself contending with both the actual expectations of the Zoom rehearsal space and the imagined expectations of the “real” rehearsal space. Crucially, the shift online did suggest positive adaptations for “post-COVID” development, which has so far included making readings on Zoom, solely or in a hybrid format, something like the norm, and allowing artists to participate in initial developmental work from afar. To what degree these accessible arrangements will become standard remains to be seen. While online spaces should continue to bolster new play development through mixed modes of production, other projects speak to the enduring power of the physical. After having its original season stymied, Rorschach Theatre Company, under the leadership of co-artistic directors Randy Baker and Jenny McConnell Frederick, joined with associate artists to develop an immersive, site-specific, mail-in project titled Psychogeographies . Now in its third iteration, Psychogeographies tells epic stories of science-fiction and fantasy through boxes of letters and artifacts mailed out to subscribers monthly. Subscribers are then invited to explore the contents of each box at a corresponding location in the DMV. Each story beat draws inspiration from the location, evoking both its geographical particulars and the power dynamics that have shaped and reshaped that geography over time. The story concludes with a live, immersive performance at a venue in DC, echoing Rorschach’s long-running commitment to exploring the way space informs narrative and experience. While criss-crossing the DMV via bike, train, and car for the project’s second installment, Chemical Exile , I became especially mindful of how embracing location as the primary connective thread of a narrative resonates both with the histories of each site and the renewed appreciation for public spaces that emerged during the early days of the pandemic, when there was hardly anywhere else to go. It helped that Chemical Exile , co-developed with associate artists Kylos Brannon, Doug Robinson, Shayla Roland, and Jonelle Walker, centered on a scientist who returns to the United States to find her material world an eerie mix of the familiar and the unfamiliar. The resulting sense of disorientation chimed with my efforts to grasp the region’s unique terrain and refined my attention to the ways many residents—particularly Black residents, like the play’s heroine—have had to grapple with the forces of gentrification transforming their homes into places that are strange and even hostile. As I alluded in my review of the piece for Washington City Paper , one of the challenges of “bingeing” Chemical Exile in one day—which, to be very clear, is not what Rorschach recommends—is that it made my transition from a self-driven, exploratory process into a delimited immersive performance especially jarring. Even in a space as beautifully rendered by Rorschach’s cadre of set designers (Nadir Bey, Sarah Beth Hall, and Grace Trudeau), I found myself longing for the freedom to explore the tension between the real world and the play’s world on my own. Thankfully, even as the District returns to something like the old “normal,” Baker and Frederick remain committed to producing new iterations of the project and introducing new audiences to the area’s psychogeography. For all the technological innovations and spatial rearrangements that the pandemic has forced new playmakers to adopt, one of the most significant pushes has been to empower audience members and theatre-makers who are often excluded from the head table. For my part, that push is most evident in education. When the pandemic set in, my chief side-gig at The National Theatre in DC shifted online, leading to an expansive website project aimed at documenting the institution’s history, a significant portion of which has been taken up by hosting pre-Broadway tryouts for future classics such as Fiddler on the Roof and M. Butterfly , and integrating them with DC-area high school curricula. More significant, however, was my time as a teaching artist with Young Playwrights’ Theater, an organization that specializes in in-school and after-school playwriting classes for students of all ages, including adults. One of my assignments was at Chelsea School, a small campus stuffed into a commercial building near the Mall at Prince George’s Plaza in Hyattsville, Maryland. The school specializes in helping students with language and learning difficulties, many of whom benefit from a suite of Google tools that include screen-readers and other language-processing technologies. In recognition of their needs, Young Playwrights’ Theater brought me on with license to riff on their usual curricula alongside my Chelsea co-teacher, who just so happened to be the school’s director. I initially took my freedom to experiment as an exciting opportunity to decenter the individual writing in our course and adopt something closer to a devised or writers’ room model. Instead of beginning with Freytag’s pyramid, I urged the students to build worlds based on the stories that moved them, taking note of everything from themes to characters to settings. Instead of drafting dialogue, I encouraged them to fill a Google Slides document with notes, images, ideas, or anything that would evoke what their collective imagination conjured. I wanted to prove that they already knew what made a good story and that we could create one of our own if we worked together. The actual writing would come later in the form of individual monologues set in the world of their design. As it happened, the plan for what we would produce changed over the course of the semester to eventually become a play that was conceived by the group, drafted by me, and presented semi-privately in the classroom. Nearly all those changes were programmatically driven; for example, the initial plan to rotate in new groups was discarded, meaning I effectively had to extend my curriculum by half a semester. Even with that shift in mind, progress was slow-going and sometimes frustrating, though that had more to do with larger issues than with the students. The two groups, one made up of middle-school girls and one of the high-school boys, were like any random sample of teenagers: active and engaged somedays, moody and distant others; some of them eager to bring the text to their feet, others petrified of making a fool of themselves. It was only later that I learned their teachers had brought me and a litany of other arts partners into their classrooms because the effects of pandemic pivots, staff departures, and the usual pressures of adolescent life had simply worn everybody out. My role as a teaching artist had less to do with generating new scripts or even helping the students advance their language facilities (a task I was not suited for on my own) and more to do with helping them release some of the steam that had built up during the past two years of their young lives spent tossing and turning on the waves of unrest. What I had treated as a pedagogical sandbox was really a chance to engage with one of the core values of storytelling: imagining other worlds that help us handle this one. Bearing that in mind, I think we can be happy with the results, even if I still came away with a long list of things to try differently next time. For example, I would take greater initiative to educate myself about pedagogical approaches suited to the environment, rather than referring solely to my already over-worked co-teacher. I also would not be so quick to shove the building blocks of dramatic action and character development to the back; if anything, understanding that a story depends much more on what a character does than what they say could be especially helpful to students for whom language is often a barrier. While my experience at Chelsea was immensely informative, it was also a prime reminder that meeting people where they are often has less to do with “producing” art than connecting with someone else’s reality. In that sense, it highlighted all the ways in which space can, and should, shape new play development. The screen-reading technology that helps some students process text is like the Zoom technology that kept professional read-throughs together: it’s a way to help bridge the gap of access and expand the reach of our room. Chelsea itself, shunted into an office floor above a clinic and a gym, illustrates how young people who are already on the fringes can be pushed even further from the center by physical and institutional architecture. My very presence, summoned by an exhausted administration’s cry for help, proves that no matter the method, what so often dictates the development of new stories is what the participants bring with them. Art does not arise out of a vacuum: it arises out of human beings meeting each other where they are. For all the ways that our new technologies and our old streets have changed new play development, that fact is effectively the same. References Footnotes About The Author(s) JARED STRANGE , Ph.D., MFA, is the Education Programs Manager at The National Theatre, as well as a writer, dramaturg, educator, and scholar based in Washington, DC. His scholarship and reviews can be found in Theatre Research International , Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism , Comparative Drama , Theatre Journal , American Theatre magazine, 3Views on Theater , Washington City Paper , and DC Theater Arts . His plays have been workshopped and produced at the MeetFactory in Prague, DC Source Festival, Rorschach Theatre Company, WildWind Performance Lab, Bath Fringe Festival, Dayton Playhouse FutureFest, and the William Inge Theatre Festival. As a dramaturg, Jared specializes in new play development, audience engagement, and education. Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Chevruta Partnership and the Playwright/Dramaturg Relationship The Heart/Roots Project and a Pandemic Pivot From Safe to Brave—Developing A Model for Interrogating Race, Racism and the Black Lives Matter Movement Using Devised Theater The Front Porch Plays: Socially-Distanced, Covid-Safe, Micro-Theatre Making Up for Lost Time: New Play Development in Academia Post COVID 19 Meet Me Where I Am: New Play Dispatches from the DC Area México (Expropriated): Reappropriation and Rechoreography of Ballet Folklórico Effing Robots Online: The Digital Dramaturgy of Translating In-Person Theatre to Online Streaming Emergent Strategy Abolitionist Pedagogy in Pandemic Time How to Make a Site-Specific Theatrical Homage to a Film Icon Without Drowning in Your Ocean of Consciousness; or, The Saga of Red Lodge, Montana Playing Global (re)Entry: Migration, Surveillance, and Digital Artmaking Reviving Feminist Archives: An Interview with Leigh Fondakowski Sarah Gancher and Jared Mezzocchi : How Collaboration is Dramaturgy Between Playwright and Multimedia Creator (Re)Generation: Creating Situational Urban Theatre During COVID and Beyond Starting with the Space: An Interview with Patrick Gabridge Pandemic Performance: Resilience, Liveness, and Protest in Quarantine Times: Edited by Kendra Capece, Patrick Scorese. New York: Routledge, 2023; Pp. 188 The Cambridge Companion to American Theatre Since 1945: Edited by Julia Listengarten and Stephen Di Benedetto. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021; Pp. 273. Democracy Moving: Bill T. Jones, Contemporary American Performance, and the Racial Past. Ariel Nereson. Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 2022; Pp. 290. Borderlands Children’s Theatre: Historical Developments and Emergence of Chicana/o/Mexican-American Youth Theatre. Cecilia Josephine Aragόn. New York: Routledge, 2022; Pp. 158. Aural/Oral Dramaturgies: Theatre in the Digital Age. Duška Radosavljević. New York, NY: Routledge, 2022; Pp. 224. Feeling the Future at Christian End-Time Performances. Jill Stevenson. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2022; Pp. 243. Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

LESLIE CUYJET + KAREN KANDEL presents Going Beige at the PRELUDE 2024 Festival at the Martin E. Segal Theater Center CUNY. PRELUDE Festival 2024 Going Beige LESLIE CUYJET + KAREN KANDEL 5:30-6:20 pm Friday, October 18, 2024 Elebash Recital Hall RSVP Performing artists Leslie Cuyjet and Karen Kandel sit down for the first time to speak about their experiences, forming the start of a collaboration of a potential project. LOBSTER Nora loves Patti Smith. Nora is Patti Smith. Nora is stoned out of her mind in the Chelsea Hotel. Actually, the Chelsea Hotel is her mind. Actually, the Chelsea Hotel is an out-of-use portable classroom in the Pacific Northwest, and that classroom is a breeding ground for lobsters. LOBSTER by Kallan Dana directed by Hanna Yurfest produced by Emma Richmond with: Anna Aubry, Chris Erdman, Annie Fang, Coco McNeil, Haley Wong Needy Lover presents an excerpt of LOBSTER , a play about teenagers putting on a production of Patti Smith and Sam Shepard's Cowboy Mouth . THE ARTISTS Needy Lover makes performances that are funny, propulsive, weird, and gut-wrenching (ideally all at the same time). We create theatre out of seemingly diametrically opposed forces: our work is both entertaining and unusual, funny and tragic. Needylover.com Kallan Dana is a writer and performer originally from Portland, Oregon. She has developed and presented work with Clubbed Thumb, The Hearth, The Tank, Bramble Theater Company, Dixon Place, Northwestern University, and Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute. She is a New Georges affiliated artist and co-founder of the artist collaboration group TAG at The Tank. She received her MFA from Northwestern University. Upcoming: RACECAR RACECAR RACECAR with The Hearth/Connelly Theater Upstairs (dir. Sarah Blush), Dec 2024. LOBSTER with The Tank (dir. Hanna Yurfest), April/May 2025. Needylover.com and troveirl.com Hanna Yurfest is a director and producer from Richmond, MA. She co-founded and leads The Tank’s artist group TAG and creates work with her company, Needy Lover. Emma Richmond is a producer and director of performances and events. She has worked with/at HERE, The Tank, The Brick, and Audible, amongst others. She was The Tank’s 2022-23 Producing Fellow, and is a member of the artist group TAG. Her day job is Programs Manager at Clubbed Thumb, and she also makes work with her collective Trove, which she co-founded. www.emma-richmond.com Rooting for You The Barbarians It's the Season Six premiere of 'Sava Swerve's: The Model Detector' and Cameron is on it!!! June, Willa, and (by proximity) Sunny are hosting weekly viewing parties every week until Cameron gets cut, which, fingers crossed, is going to be the freakin' finale! A theatrical playground of a play that serves an entire season of 'so-bad-it's-good' reality TV embedded in the social lives of a friend group working through queerness, adolescence, judgment, and self-actualization. Presenting an excerpt from Rooting for You! with loose staging, experimenting with performance style, timing, and physicality. THE ARTISTS Ashil Lee (he/they) NYC-based actor, playwright, director, and sex educator. Korean-American, trans nonbinary, child of immigrants, bestie to iconic pup Huxley. Described as "a human rollercoaster" and "Pick a lane, buddy!" by that one AI Roast Bot. 2023 Lucille Lortel nominee (Outstanding Ensemble: The Nosebleed ) and Clubbed Thumb Early Career Writers Group Alum. NYU: Tisch. BFA in Acting, Minor in Youth Mental Health. Masters Candidate in Mental Health and Wellness (NYU Steinhardt: 20eventually), with intentions of incorporating mental health consciousness into the theatre industry. www.ashillee.com Phoebe Brooks is a gender non-conforming theater artist interested in establishing a Theatre of Joy for artists and audiences alike. A lifelong New Yorker, Phoebe makes art that spills out beyond theater-going conventions and forges unlikely communities. They love messing around with comedy, heightened text, and gender performance to uncover hidden histories. She's also kind of obsessed with interactivity; particularly about figuring out how to make audience participation less scary for audiences. Phoebe has a BA in Theatre from Northwestern University and an MFA in Theatre Directing from Columbia University's School of the Arts. The Barbarians is a word-drunk satirical play exploring political rhetoric and the power of words on the world. With cartoonish wit and rambunctious edge, it asks: what if the President tried to declare war, but the words didn't work? Written by Jerry Lieblich and directed by Paul Lazar, it will premiere in February 2025 at LaMama. The Barbarians is produced in association with Immediate Medium, and with support from the Venturous Theater Fund of the Tides Foundation. THE ARTISTS Jerry Lieblich (they/them) plays in the borderlands of theater, poetry, and music. Their work experiments with language as a way to explore unexpected textures of consciousness and attention. Plays include Mahinerator (The Tank), The Barbarians (La Mama - upcoming), D Deb Debbie Deborah (Critic’s Pick: NY Times), Ghost Stories (Critic’s Pick: TimeOut NY), and Everything for Dawn (Experiments in Opera). Their poetry has appeared in Foglifter, Second Factory, TAB, Grist, SOLAR, Pomona Valley Review, Cold Mountain Review, and Works and Days. Their poetry collection otherwise, without was a finalist for The National Poetry Series. Jerry has held residencies at MacDowell, MassMoCA, Blue Mountain Center, Millay Arts, and UCROSS, and Yiddishkayt. MFA: Brooklyn College. www.thirdear.nyc Paul Lazar is a founding member, along with Annie-B Parson, of Big Dance Theater. He has co-directed and acted in works for Big Dance since 1991, including commissions from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Old Vic (London), The Walker Art Center, Classic Stage Co., New York Live Arts, The Kitchen, and Japan Society. Paul directed Young Jean Lee’s We’re Gonna Die which was reprised in London featuring David Byrne. Other directing credits include Bodycast with Francis McDormand (BAM), Christina Masciotti’s Social Security (Bushwick Starr), and Major Bang (for The Foundry Theatre) at Saint Ann’s Warehouse. Awards include two Bessies (2010, 2002), the Jacob’s Pillow Creativity Award (2007), and the Prelude Festival’s Frankie Award (2014), as well an Obie Award for Big Dance in 2000. Steve Mellor has appeared on Broadway (Big River ), Off-Broadway (Nixon's Nixon ) and regionally at Arena Stage, Long Wharf Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Portland Stage and Yale Rep. A longtime collaborator with Mac Wellman, Steve has appeared in Wellman's Harm’s Way, Energumen, Dracula, Cellophane, Terminal Hip (OBIE Award), Sincerity Forever, A Murder of Crows, The Hyacinth Macaw, 7 Blowjobs (Bessie Award), Strange Feet, Bad Penny, Fnu Lnu, Bitter Bierce (OBIE Award), and Muazzez . He also directed Mr. Wellman's 1965 UU. In New York City, he has appeared at the Public Theater, La Mama, Soho Rep, Primary Stages, PS 122, MCC Theater, The Chocolate Factory, and The Flea. His film and television credits include Sleepless in Seattle, Mickey Blue Eyes, Celebrity, NYPD Blue, Law and Order, NY Undercover, and Mozart in the Jungle. Chloe Claudel is an actor and director based in NYC and London. She co-founded the experimental company The Goat Exchange, with which she has developed over a dozen new works of theater and film, including Salome, or the Cult of the Clitoris: a Historical Phallusy in last year's Prelude Festival. She's thrilled to be working with Paul and Jerry on The Barbarians . Anne Gridley is a two time Obie award-winning actor, dramaturg, and artist. As a founding member of Nature Theater of Oklahoma, she has co-created and performed in critically acclaimed works including Life & Times, Poetics: A Ballet Brut, No Dice, Romeo & Juliet, and Burt Turrido . In addition to her work with Nature Theater, Gridley has performed with Jerôme Bel, Caborca, 7 Daughters of Eve, and Big Dance, served as a Dramaturg for the Wooster Group’s production Who’s Your Dada ?, and taught devised theater at Bard College. Her drawings have been shown at H.A.U. Berlin, and Mass Live Arts. B.A. Bard College; M.F.A. Columbia University. Naren Weiss is an actor/writer who has worked onstage (The Public Theater, Second Stage, Kennedy Center, Geffen Playhouse, international), in TV (ABC, NBC, CBS, Comedy Central), and has written plays that have been performed across the globe (India, Singapore, South Africa, U.S.). Upcoming: The Sketchy Eastern European Show at The Players Theatre (Mar. '24). Photo: Maria Baranova Karen Kandel is a cultural worker, mentor, performer, writer, and a co-Artistic Director of NYC based theater company, Mabou Mines. Leslie Cuyjet is a performer, artist, and writer based in Brooklyn, NY. More information at lesliecuyjet.com Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2024 See What's on

European Stages serves as an inclusive English-language journal, providing a detailed perspective on the unfolding narrative of contemporary European theatre since 1969. Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back European Stages 19, Fall, 2024 Volume Visit Journal Homepage International Theatre Festival in Pilsen 2024 or The Human Beings and Their Place in Society Published: November 25, 2024 Download Article as PDF By Klára Madunická Image Credits: Article For thirty-two years the city of Pilsen has hosted the largest international festival in the Czech Republic. In the course of three decades, from an originally smaller cultural event, show-casing theatrical works of the countries of the so-called Visegrad Four, it has developed into a festival that presents the best of theatre from all over the world - from Britain and France, through Germany, the Netherlands, Italy to America, Iceland and Israel. The year 2024 was no exception, with ensembles from all over Europe gathering in Pilsen. From 11th to 19th September, on the new and old stages of the J. K. Tyl Theatre, Alfa Theatre and Moving Station a total of thirty-one productions were presented. And although the 32nd edition of the festival had no specific overarching title, the dramaturgy’s prevalent focus on socially critical themes was evident. The main leitmotif of all the productions included in the main program was the human being's confrontation with their past - be it in personal, national, or generational terms. The Human Being as a Social Construct Human beings as social creatures and their destiny are largely co-shaped by the society in which they live – by its history, its present and the future it heads toward. And certain archetypes can be perceived on the basis of ingrained patterns of behavior that recur in society across the centuries. This was the theme raised by the opening performance of the festival - Hecuba, not Hecuba of the Paris Comédie-Française (discussed in more detail in essays on Avignon and Epidauros in this issue). The author and director of the production is the Portuguese actor, director, playwright and producer Tiag o Rodrigues - a world-renowned theatre-maker. His work blurs the boundaries between theatre and reality, questioning the viewer's perception of social and historical phenomena, finding intersections between them and presenting them as a new reality to the audience. Hecuba, not Hecuba. Photo © Christophe Raynaud de Lage Hecuba, not Hecuba is a tragedy born between the lines of another tragedy. The author wrote it directly "on the body" of the actors. The story is about a small theatre company that has just begun rehearsing Euripides' ancient drama about Hecuba, who, as the wife of a Trojan ruler, has lost everything after the fall of Troy - her husband, her property, her power and her children - and is desperate for justice. The fictional tragedy is mixed with the painful fate of the play's protagonist Nadia. She has an autistic son who has been the victim of abuse and mistreatment in a nursing home. As a mother she rebels and, in parallel with rehearsals at the theatre, pursues a lawsuit against the institution on her son's behalf. Through the gradual culmination of the plot, a synthesis transpires, a painful encounter between the world of the fictional and the real. Nadia represents the archetype of the mother who defends her children, their honour, life and rights. She invokes justice in the same way as the ancient Hecuba and achieves catharsis only when her enemies suffer. The unequal, exhausting struggle, however, must necessarily take its toll on the warrior. Tiago Rodrigues is famous for his ability to look at difficult subjects from a detached perspective and with a sensitive humor that underlines the seriousness of the topic. The affectionate humor that accompanies the uneasy fates of the individual characters from the beginning to the end of the production is interspersed with emotionally tense, dramatic scenes in dynamic pacing and abrupt interludes. Such a directorial approach places high demands especially on the acting, which dominates this production. The simple, somber set, designed by Fernando Ribeiro, is dominated only by a large, antic sculpture of a dog, which forms one of the essential elements linking the text of Euripides' play and Rodrigues' play. Basic furnishings such as a table and chairs provide only minimal support for the actors, who do not leave the stage space for a moment. Despite the complicated plot, however, the viewer is not lost - the creators punctuate the intersections between present and past, reality and fiction by multiple means. The first, most striking of these is via light: warm hues for reality and cold white light for the upcoming play. The second, perhaps even more important element, is the manner of acting. The latter teeters on a spectrum from natural civility to absolute movement and vocal stylization. The Comédie-Française had, thus, provided a unique experience for the festival visitors. This success was confirmed by their guest appearance at the Slovak National Theatre in Bratislava a few days later, where two performances of Hecuba, not Hecuba in a sold-out hall were an unprecedented success with both professional and lay audiences. The Comédie-Française production remains for me one of the highlights of this year's Pilsen festival. Dealing with the Past The theme of coming to terms with the past at different levels of human existence was subsequently developed in several other productions. The German-French co-production of the internationally acclaimed French director Julien Gosselin, Extinction , certainly deserves the title of "the most challenging performance" of all this year's productions. Extinction . Photo © Christophe Raynaud de Lage In three closed, yet interconnected parts, this five-hour long saga focuses on the search for one's own self, one's own voice in today's world, as well as on family or partnership relationships, interpersonal communication, the dreams and worldviews of an individual or an entire society and, ultimately, the direction of the world in the 21st century. The director starts the whole performance in a rather irritating way: with a forty-minute techno party, during which the audience freely comes on stage, drinks beer and has fun. Through a screen on which just-shot details of the onstage action are projected live, the audience learns about the fate of Elsa, a teacher who has abandoned her home. She does not share the views and way of life of her parents and siblings, and lives in Vienna, where she enjoys herself with her friend, the actress Aurelie. She has a film project in the making, which the audience witnesses in the second part of the production. The third part is a telling, hour-long monologue by Elsa, who has just learned that her parents have died. Gosselin looks at the exuberant artistic and intellectual life in Vienna, yet not from the perspective of a historian of the middle of the 20th century, but rather than that from the perspective of a contemporary, giving the audience on stage and in the auditorium a glimpse of its "merry apocalypse," From the party, we go straight into a house as if cut out of the Viennese underbelly of early 20th century Vienna. The engagement party, which transpires there and which degenerates into a sexual orgy, incest, rape, prostitution and anti-Semitic talk, and ends in a murderous massacre, is watched via live cinema from a house built on the stage. It is only at the end of that second, almost three-hour-long, section that Gosselin learns that this is a film set in the 1930s. The entire production is an adaptation of Thomas Bernhard's novel Extinction , which is interwoven with texts by Hugo von Hofmannstahl and plays or novels by Arthur Schnitzler. Despite the diametrically different stage treatment and semantic language of the individual parts, at the end of the production the viewer receives a coherent point formulated in an hour-long monologue by Rosa Lembeck in a close-up on the screen above the stage, paraphrasing Thomas Bernhard's text about the transience of time, the stereotypical patterns of social and human existence, or the need to find one's own way through life. The production stands between theatre, film, site-specific theatre and performance, with each of the three parts employing diametrically opposite means of artistic expression. Gosselin lets the viewer experience a five-hour journey towards the final punch-line, which ultimately turns the entire responsibility for the issues raised and the socio-critical dimension of the work onto the viewer himself. The direction that the 'merry apocalypse' is to take in the 21st century is up to each and every one of us. The Hungarian ensemble Őrkény Színház from Budapest, which performed Ibsen's drama Solness at the festival, also reported on the personal coping not only with the past, but especially with the future (See also the essay Where Comes the Sun in this issue.) The dramaturgically abbreviated text about an architect who is afraid of being replaced by younger and more talented colleagues gradually revealed the personal and family tragedies that, in a tangle of events and long years of silence, have remained embedded in the conscience of a man and which, through the influence of an innocent event, have surfaced. Solness . Photo © Judit Horvath Director Ildikó Gáspár's production took place in an arena-like space in which the boundaries between auditorium and stage were blurred. The actors entered the centre of the arena from the auditorium itself and exited it again among the audience. The chamber character of the production further underlined the heavy, psychoanalytic atmosphere of Ibsen's play, which in the Hungarian ensemble's conception took on the features of a movement and music production. Yet, it was the very text of Norway's most important playwright that became the biggest stumbling block. The narrative nature of this drama largely predetermined both the form of the production and its outcome. This Solness , thus, ranked among the weaker entries in the festival program, especially with its over-dimensioned conclusion, which seemed, in the context of the rest of this rather classic drama production, like a film about Count Dracula. National History as a Topic The Czech Republic and Slovakia seem to have a constant need to revisit their national past, its ups and downs. The Goose on a String Theatre presented a dramatization of Juan Goytisolo's novel The Marx Family Saga, directed by Jan Mikulášek. The plot intertwines the historical perspective of the 19th century with the present day, with the family portrait of the Marx family being the main subject of the confrontation of the two periods. The Marx Family Saga. Photo © Narodni divadlo Brno Mikulášek opens the production with a farce surrounding the installation of a statue of Marx, which subsequently comes to life and tries to approach or defend the meaning of its own existence. The production has a collage-like character in which the viewer meets not only Marx and Engels, but also their wives, getting to know both the light and dark sides of their personalities, worldview and politics. The past is juxtaposed with the socialist world of the second half of the 20th century and then with the present, where the phenomenon of the cult of Marx's personality is beginning to emerge under the influence of a resurgent capitalism. Mikulášek's stage composition stands on the borderline between psychological drama, comedy, metaphorical stage stylization and reportorial inquiry. On stage we see not only actors and actresses, but also footage from a street reportage on the topics like "Who was Marx? Does he deserve a statue in the city? Is communism an acceptable form of ordering society in the 21st century?" The production, thus, brought to the festival a format featuring both artistical and documentary means of expression that ultimately looks at history with both critical detachment and sarcastic humor. The Alfa Theatre in Pilsen also presented a production for which it had turned to the past: Čáslavská - Tokyo – 1964. In it they theatrically processed the memorable event when Věra Čáslavská won the Olympic gold medal in Tokyo in 1964. In the resulting fictional story based on real events, the creators present the Czechoslovak gymnast as the embodiment of the best national qualities: Čáslavská is honest, good-hearted, modest and fair. The production, which is primarily intended for children’s audience, not only brought humour, but director Jakub Vašíček also managed to achieve a truly realistic atmosphere of the Olympic Games in the 1960s through the colours, costumes, props and music. Its premiere was in Tokyo in 2024 and was created by a Czech-Japanese team of actors and creators. The authenticity with which the Alfa Theatre treated this important moment in the sporting and cultural history of Czechoslovakia captivated both young and old audiences alike. The theme of national history was also presented by the ensemble of the Slovak National Theatre with a dramatization of Pavel Vilikovský's short story Dog on the Road . This production touched me the most, but not in a generally positive sense. As a Slovak, I was sensitive to the political and social themes that are revealed in the short story. The four protagonists basically spend the whole time explaining to the audience that they are "just" Slovaks and therefore will never culturally reach the level of Germany, Austria or Scandinavia. From this starting point, the episodic etudes subsequently present various tragicomic, grotesque or downright irritating situations that reflect the history of the Slovak nation after 1989. The references to political figures, specific journalists and writers, however, took on a monstrously topical dimension after the performance, when the protagonists read the manifesto of the Open Culture movement, which is currently read by all state-established and independent theatres in Slovakia after all performances. The parallel with Vilikovsky's short story, written after the fall of the communist regime, acquired special strength at a time when the Minister of Culture is making mass personnel changes in the management of key cultural institutions in Slovakia without giving any reason and without appointing an adequate replacement. So the production Dog on the Road became a gesture of protest. It is an example of how a mediocre production in a new social and political context can become an important landmark of international significance. Dog on the Road. Photo © Slovak National Theatre The Pilsen Festival in 2024 brought forward a number of thought-provoking themes. Both the organization and the artistic level have traditionally been of a higeh standard. For me this edition of the Festival has been the best possible start of the 2024/25 theatre season, which will hopefully be full of similarly stimulating and inspiring artistic experiences. The creation of the review supported using public funding by Slovak Arts Council. References References About the author(s) Klára Madunická, AICT, Slovakia. Klára Madunická graduated in theatre studies at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava, Slovakia. She successfully completed her PhD in Aesthetics and as a researcher at the Slovak Academy of Sciences she has been working on theatre theory, history and criticism for a long time. She has been a member of AICT since 2024, serves on several committees and editorial boards, is editor of the peer-reviewed professional journal Theatrica and is the author of several national and international studies. In 2025 she will publish two monographs on musical theatre in Slovakia. European Stages European Stages, born from the merger of Western European Stages and Slavic and East European Performance in 2013, is a premier English-language resource offering a comprehensive view of contemporary theatre across the European continent. With roots dating back to 1969, the journal has chronicled the dynamic evolution of Western and Eastern European theatrical spheres. It features in-depth analyses, interviews with leading artists, and detailed reports on major European theatre festivals, capturing the essence of a transformative era marked by influential directors, actors, and innovative changes in theatre design and technology. European Stages is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Between Dark Aesthetics and Repetition: Reflections on the Theatre of the Bulgarian Director Veselka Kuncheva and Her Two Newest Productions Hecuba Provokes Catharsis and Compassion in the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus (W)here comes the sun? Avignon 78, 2024. Imagining Possible Worlds and Celebrating Multiple Languages and Cultures Report from Basel International Theatre Festival in Pilsen 2024 or The Human Beings and Their Place in Society SPIRITUAL, VISCERAL, VISUAL … SPIRITUAL, VISCERAL, VISUAL …SHAKESPEARE AS YOU LIKE IT. IN CRAIOVA, ROMANIA, FOR 30 YEARS NOW Fine art in confined spaces 2024 Report from London and Berlin Berlin’s “Ten Remarkable Productions” Take the Stage in the 61st Berliner Theatertreffen. A Problematic Classic: Lorca’s Bernarda Alba, at Home and Abroad Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Encounter Richard Move / MoveOpolis!'s work Devrai (Sacred Grove) in Manhattan, at this year's edition of the Prelude in the Parks festival by The Segal Centre, presented in collaboration with Summer on the Hudson and Riverside Park Conservancy. Prelude in the Parks 2024 Festival Devrai (Sacred Grove) Richard Move / MoveOpolis! Dance Friday, June 7, 2024 @ 6pm and 6:30pm Riverside Park, Manhattan Meet at Riverside Drive and 79th Street. Performance on 80th St Lawn Summer on the Hudson and Riverside Park Conservancy Presented by Mov!ng Culture Projects and The Segal Center in collaboration with Presented by Mov!ng Culture Projects and The Segal Center View Location Details RSVP To Event "Devrai (Sacred Grove)” calls attention to our local ecosystems and landscapes. The Indian word “Devrai” is a compound of Dev meaning 'God' and 'Rai' meaning forest. A prehistoric tradition of nature conservation, sacred groves have long been revered as sacrosanct and imbued with the belief that no creature may be harmed within its boundaries. This performance of Devrai (Sacred Grove) is a section of Richard Move’s Herstory of the Universe series commissioned by the Trust for Governors Island as part of Herstory of the Universe@Governors Island, named “Best Dance of 2021” by The New York Times. Devrai (Sacred Grove) will be performed by Aristotle Luna (Complexions Contemporary Ballet, Richard Move / MoveOpolis!) at 6:00pm and again at 6:30pm. Featured Image Credits: Akua Noni Parker in "Devrai (Sacred Grove)" by Ben DeFlorio. Richard Move / MoveOpolis! Richard Move, Ph.D., M.F.A. is a 2023 Guggenheim Fellow, TED Global Oxford Fellow, New York Public Library Dance Research Fellow, Artistic Director of MoveOpolis! and Assistant Arts Professor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Department of Dance. Move's choreographic commissions include productions for Mikhail Baryshnikov and the White Oak Dance Project, two works for the Martha Graham Dance Company, a solo for New York City Ballet Principal, Heléne Alexopoulos, and a trio for PARADIGM - Carmen De Lavallade, Gus Solomons, Jr. and Dudley Williams. Visit Artist Website Location Meet at Riverside Drive and 79th Street. Performance on 80th St Lawn Summer on the Hudson and Riverside Park Conservancy Summer on the Hudson is NYC Parks' annual outdoor arts and culture festival that takes place in Riverside Park from 59th Street to 153rd Street. With a mix of music concerts, dance performances, movies under the stars, DJ dance parties, kids shows, special events, wellness activities, and more there is something for everyone! All programs and events are free to the public and registration is not required unless specifically stated in event information. The mission of the Riverside Park Conservancy is to restore, maintain, and improve Riverside Park in partnership with the City of New York for the enjoyment and benefit of all New Yorkers. We support the preservation of the park’s historic landscape, structures, and monuments, engage the community in active stewardship of the park, and provide a wide range of public programs. Visit Partner Website

Johan Callens, Guest Editor Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 30 2 Visit Journal Homepage Introduction: Mediations of Authorship in American Postdramatic Mediaturgies Johan Callens, Guest Editor By Published on May 30, 2018 Download Article as PDF For a good understanding, the Spring 2018 American Theatre and Drama Society issue of the Journal of American Drama and Theatre is best considered as an initiative that follows up the BELSPO sponsored international research project, “Literature and Media Innovation: The Question of Genre Transformations.” Running from 2012-2017, it brought together six research teams, four of which hailed from Belgian institutions—two Flemish (KULeuven & VUB) and two Walloon ones (Louvain-la-Neuve and Liège)—besides one from Canada (UQAM) and one from the US (OSU). [1] Among the many genres analyzed and fields explored in light of the increasing mediatization of the arts and society at large, theatre and performance fell to the Center for Literary and Intermedial Crossings (CLIC) at the Free University of Brussels. On March 17, 2016, this Center organized a conference already devoted to the theme of the present journal issue, even if the ATDS contributions zoom-in on specifically American inflections of the topic. Still, in a globalized world, the mobility and mixed roots of artists, besides the constant need to find sponsors, renders the characterization of projects in national terms perhaps questionable and their mediaturgical interests seldom exclusive. As Jacob Gallagher-Ross, one of the speakers at the Belgian conference, in the meantime has argued, it is somewhat ironical that the first installment of Nature Theater of Oklahoma’s media-enabled Life and Times project, “singing the sorrows and pleasures of a very American childhood, was featured in Berlin’s Theatertreffen festival as one of the ten best German productions of the year.” [2] Aside from the ironies of international funding, and scholarship, we may add, I here want to mention, as a preliminary, some of the more general issues that the March 2016 VUB conference tackled. [3] Thus, Matthew Cornish (Ohio U) dealt with the reliance on diagrammatic scripts by the English-German theatre collective Gob Squad to support their improvised encounters with people on the streets, synchronously relayed into heavily mediatized stage productions. Bernadette Cochrane (U of Queensland) discussed the destabilization of the spatio-temporal locators of productions and audiences in global but not necessarily democratizing “livecasts,” whether from New York’s Metropolitan Opera or London’s National Theatre. Dries Vandorpe (UGent) returned to mediaturgical theatre’s related deconstruction of the vexed ontological distinction between live and techno-mediated performance on the grounds of diverse arguments (spatiotemporal co-presence and spectatorial agency, affective impact and authenticity, contingency and risk, unicity and variability…)—arguments all flawed because of logically defective classification systems. With the aid of some intermedial choreographic work by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, I myself queried the reciprocity between technology’s invitation to appropriation and adaptations’ increasing hybridization because of that very technology, a process challenging the logical discreteness, self-presence or self-sufficiency, as well as hierarchical character of generic, media, and gender identities, both, much like traditional authorship, making for an empowering yet disenfranchising exclusiveness. [4] The themes of the Brussels conference and present ATDS issue also adhere closely to the remit of the doctoral project conducted by CLIC member Claire Swyzen, here represented by an essay on the Hungarian-American Edit Kaldor and New Yorker Annie Dorsen. Kaldor’s Or Press Escape (2002) and Web of Trust (2016) are shown to open up the theatre stage to the social media, converting it into a more apparently than actually co-authored media-activist site, joining physically present and tele-present audience members. As a result, the authorship here already signaled towards Michel Foucault’s more discursive author function. Dorsen’s Hello Hi There (2010) in fact consisted of a staged conversation between two chatbots mouthing text bits partly culled by computer algorithms from an interview between Foucault and Noam Chomsky on whether language creates consciousness or vice versa. [5] As indicated by Dorsen’s post-human talk show, whose textual database was expanded with material from the Western humanist tradition, the scope of Swyzen’s research and of postdramatic mediaturgies obviously exceeds the American context, reaching out to the very processes of cognition. The term and concept of the “postdramatic” were nevertheless popularized by German scholars like Gerda Poschmann and Hans-Thies Lehmann who theorized the notion with the aid of the varied theatre practice in Germany and surrounding countries during the late 20th century. [6] As recently as 2015, Marvin Carlson still argued the relative absence of postdramatic theatre from the North American mainstream, despite important contributions from experimentalists like the Wooster Group, Richard Foreman, and Robert Wilson. [7] On both sides of the Atlantic, however, there have been misconceptions regarding the precise nature of the postdramatic, leading to confusions with collective, interdisciplinary, and devised theatre productions. [8] After all, these just as easily allow for the contribution of independently active playwrights with a lingering dramatic bent as for the more broadly defined writing integral to postdramatic mediaturgies. Central features of postdramatic theatre are the reconfiguration, if not abandonment, of Aristotelian dramatic concepts and traditional theatrical notions such as character, action and plot, proscenium stage and set, normative temporality and spatiality, etc. As a corollary, conventional drama’s underlying mimetic premise is challenged, too, though illusionistic effects, whether aestheticizing, activist, or media-critical, remain common, as Swyzen demonstrates with regard to Kaldor’s Web of Trust . These illusionistic effects are also hard to resist, as when critics interpreted the fragmentation of Spalding Gray’s recollections in India and After (America) (1979) as reflections of his cultural alienation and psychological breakdown, as argued by Ira S. Murfin in his contribution to the present ATDS issue. Mimesis possibly survives the postdramatic mediaturgical turn in the guise of reenactments which problematize any arguable paradigm shift, insofar as the “post-dramatic” signals both continuities and discontinuities. Reenactments therefore could be said to limit dramatic theatre’s creation of a “fictive cosmos” [9] to the overt recreation of a “reality,” whether artistic or not, often with the help of advanced technology, as in the scrupulously reproduced everyday speech, at times verging on uncanny nonsense, in the productions of Nature Theater of Oklahoma. This invites comparison with what Dorsen calls the occasional “near-sense” of the chatbots’ dialogue foregrounding the thingness and materiality of language, undermining dramatic theater’s logocentrism as well as infusing postdramatic theatre like Dorsen’s with an unexpected lyricism. As Gallagher-Ross argued at the Brussels conference and in his subsequently published study on Theaters of the Everyday: Aesthetic Democracy on the American Stage (2018), the technology-based practice of Nature Theater of Oklahoma, besides documenting an extant reality, touches on the very processes of perception and thought, struggling to achieve verbal expression prior to any artificially imposed aesthetic or (post)dramatic form, given that in the different installments of their epic Life and Times they also experiment with extant genres and media forms. Reenactments do not, for that matter, automatically reclaim realist art’s function as illusionistic slice of life. To the extent that this function indeed depends on maintaining the fourth wall, it actually staves off everyday reality to the benefit of some Platonist ideal controlled by the dramatist. Gallagher-Ross traces the roots of America’s theaters of the everyday, like that of Nature Theater of Oklahoma, to American Transcendentalism but this democratic homebred tradition represented by Emerson and Thoreau, revalorizes the aesthetic value of daily life as personally experienced. Quite surprisingly, a similar impulse may be at work in Kaldor’s work, insofar as it seems to share characteristics with the Slow Media movement, as argued by Swyzen. This reflective, contemplative impulse should be distinguished from European idealist aesthetics permeating the continental dramatic tradition via Hegel’s abstract moralism up to the late 19th century and beyond, which is not to say, as Gallagher-Ross argues, that there is no ethical-critical dimension to an enhanced awareness of our everyday experiences, be they technological or not. [10] In Swimming to Cambodia (1985), one of Spalding Gray’s “talk performances” discussed in the present JADT issue by Murfin, the manner in which Gray incessantly and obstinately pursues an idealized yet heavily mediatized “Perfect Moment” makes him oblivious to the everyday beauty Emerson advocated. On Karon Beach in the Gulf of Siam Gray apparently found his “Shangri-La,” evocative both of perfect Kodachrome color spreads for luxury resorts and of Robert Wilson’s mediaturgical theatre of images. [11] Emerson is explicitly referenced by Gray when he mentions his own studies at Emerson College and in his moment of “Cosmic Consciousness” echoes the philosopher’s famous “transparent eye-ball”-passage from his essay on “Nature.” The eventual shift to a non-contigent idealism making timeless abstraction of the evanescent everyday could be seen as evidence of Murfin’s claim that Gray’s early talk performances solidified in later productions under the influence of the very technologies he initially played off to preserve his monologues’ freshness. Put differently, Gray’s talk performances, as here argued, moved away from a more postdramatic authorship deflected by “intermedial contingency,” to a more self-authored dramatic literary model. Lehmann in this regard speaks of realist drama’s and the dramatic form’s “catharsis” of the real, [12] supplementing tragedy’s much debated abreaction of pity and fear (or the negative features of these emotions) in the course of a dramatic action thereby completed and closed off. Postdramatic theatre, by contrast, tends to reduce the dramatist’s control, it opens up the stage to the everyday, and redistributes authorial power. This happened partly under the influence of technology, partly by promoting the performer-audience relation or so-called theatron axis, [13] thus releasing a social activist potential in the joint “creation” of text and performance. What is eventually lost in terms of illusionistic representation, aesthetic pleasure and entertainment value may be gained in terms of political awareness, as the physical embodiment and exposure of, and to the mediation returns a sense of agency in a mediascape obfuscating its operations, material and immaterial, for whatever reasons (sheer complexity, profit, ideology…). The media’s prominence in contemporary dramaturgies has led Bonnie Marranca to coin the term “mediaturgy” for those productions where the technology is integral to the composition of the theatrical performance rather than a surface phenomenon. [14] Cases in point she provided at the time were Super Vision (2005-2006) by The Builders Association and Firefall (2007-2009) by John Jesurun. This is one of the reasons why the Brussels conference on postdramatic mediaturgies featured Shannon Jackson (UC Berkeley) as keynote speaker, with a talk on “The Relational Construction of Form and Authorship in Cross-Arts Collaboration.” In that talk, she explored a variety of institutional settings—museums, theaters, festivals, installations—and considered how conceptions of form and authorial signature change accordingly. Depending, in part, upon the curatorial conventions of the venue, a performer may be a collaborator, a subordinate, or a form of material. Similarly, moving work across institutional venues may shift the stance taken towards artistic contributions, whether by the artists-creators or spectators-consumers. Work discussed included that of The Builders Association, on which Jackson and Marianne Weems published the first lavishly illustrated monograph, and which Marranca deemed exemplary of postdramatic mediaturgies. [15] That Weems, the director of The Builders Association, together with several company members, should have co-authored this critical-genetic study which is partly archive, partly (auto)biography, marks the extent of her creative practice and possibly the postdramatic remediation of a retrograde seeming, paper-based platform, all too easily lending itself to linear single-authored stories. [16] The meticulous crediting of each and every one involved in each of the Builders Association productions is further evidence of the dispersion of traditional authorship, which may well have been the default of theatrical creation. To quote from the book’s intro: “Early pieces such as Master Builder , Imperial Motel (Faust) , and JUMP CUT (Faust) restaged and rearranged classic tales across unorthodox architectural assemblies of screens and bodies, a practice of postdramatic retelling to which The Builders returned in their recent restaging of House/Divided .” [17] The epilogue, too, in a conversation between Weems and Eleanor Bishop, extensively dwells on the mediaturgical aspect of The Builders Association’s work at large, more in particular the prominence of computer-aided media design as dramaturgy and the medial creation of meaning and implementation of media-related ideas, like the networked constitution of self by such a mediascape. [18] Thus the media become material and metaphor. This reciprocity gets reflected in Jackson’s critical vocabulary when she speaks of the company’s “theatrical operating systems” and “storyboard” phases—terms derived from computer science and cinema to designate the mediaturgical postdramatic (re)assembly process, “that may or may not be post-narrative as well.” [19] The resulting “smart” productions are directly addressed to a “smart” audience perhaps too much at ease with “smart” technologies [20] to fully fathom or question their implications. Hence these technologies have become the means and object of theatricalization, as in Super Vision , dealing with the economics and politics of “dataveillance,” or Continuous City (2007-2010), exploring global social networking technologies and their impact on how we inhabit local geographies. John Jesurun, that other exemplar of postdramatic mediaturgies Marranca singled out, has been at the center of the scholarship which Christophe Collard generated in the context of the inter-university research project on genre transformations and the new media. Like the predoctoral work of Swyzen, some of his wide-ranging postdoctoral work is here sampled, albeit with a more programmatic contribution in which Jesurun’s “ecological,” i.e. organic and holistic interrelational interpretation of the mediaturgical concept allows for a brief survey of his creative output. In the course of his playwriting career, Jesurun has collaborated with Weems’s Builders Association, as well as with Ron Vawter, founding member of the Wooster Group, on scripts that were subsequently produced by other companies, too. [21] But Jesurun is also reputed to reduce his live performers to language-machines, as here argued by Collard. This again attests to the lingering tension between the loosening and tightening of authorial control, equally evident in Dorsen’s algorithmic theater, where the options for the chatbots’ conversation in Hello Hi There have been preprogrammed and are thus contained by Dorsen and her collaborator, the chatbot designer Robby Garner. Even in Kaldor’s Web of Trust , the seemingly co-authored protocol in retrospect was prescripted, as Swyzen discovered. Whereas Kaldor herself may have obfuscated the “rehearsal” of the protocol for her Web of Trust prior to its live performance, Gray’s critics were the ones who tended to miss or neglect the reliance on media of reproduction in his low-tech monologues. [22] At first sight, his early “talk performances” seem diametrically opposed to Dorsen’s chatbot and Kaldor’s computer desktop performances. Yet Murfin in his discussion of Gray’s monologues demonstrates their postdramatic mediaturgical stance by foregrounding his deliberate extemporaneous use of language as material and process rather than narrative content, in reaction to medial fixity and dramatic linearity. This resonates with the aleatory artistic tradition in which Dorsen also inscribes her work partly because of the manner in which freedom is generated by constraints, just as for Jesurun language provides an enabling limit for his performers and technology, even if he opposes his actors’ improvisation. Contrary to his later reputation as unassisted “solo” performer, Gray’s monologues were heavily determined by media objects. During the creation and performance of his early work these were used as found or documentary material triggering improvisation rather than as support of a fixed script, whether the taped interviews with family members, slides, and vinyl recording of The Cocktail Party in Rumstick Road (1977), a dictionary in India and After (America) (1979), or his journal entries on a West Coast tour, framed by contemporaneous newspaper, magazine and book excerpts in The Great Crossing (1980). However, Gray’s reliance on the same media (writing, print, audio and video recordings) for the development and circulation of his monologues, in a sort of feedback loop fixed them, whereas the human recall and extemporization earlier on made for fragmentation and discontinuity, at the expense of an authoritative voice and story. What may have accelerated this process, Murfin argues, is the artist’s need for a commodifiable format or comedy act. By doing without the diary entries in Nobody Wanted to Sit Behind a Desk (1980) Gray very much resolved the dilemma in favor of the dramatic lineage and replication, but at the expense of intermedial contingency. Gray’s autobiographical talk performances, dependent on predominantly analogue media, form a radical contrast with the collective identity performance of in-groups by means of social media and the web, dealt with by Ellen Gillooly-Kress. This hybridized live and digital identity construction through visual signposts, insiders’ language and performative gestures, rather than solidify in the course of time, as argued by Murfin for Gray, keeps changing, as the markers of identity are appropriated by opposite parties, like anti-fascists and white supremacists. The hazards of the social media are indeed such that any meme can be co-opted and abused in ideological conflicts. This recalls Roland Barthes’s claim that the only way to outwit myths is to remythify them in turn, the more since myths in his definition exchange a physical reality with a pseudo-reality, much like the internet may be said to do. The partly arbitrary choice of a meme as vehicle for a new ideological content also fits Barthes’s myths, though in both kinds of appropriation, the original content is still needed as support of the new signification. [23] The initiative for these appropriated identity memes and their ideological reinscription may have been taken by individuals or be limited to the policy-makers of the ingroup. Yet, the memes’ viral spread on the social media and imageboard websites like 4chan and Reddit collectivizes authorship, short of exploding it altogether. Through its antagonistic rhetoric, making for a war-like scenario, the digital and discursive performance, when picked up by the traditional media, also risks spilling over from the internet back into the physical world and actual violence. This was the case with #HEWILLNOTDIVIDEUS , an unmoderated live stream participatory performance, set up by Nastja Säde Rönkkö, Luke Turner, and Shia LaBeouf on the occasion of Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2017. Apart from traveling from New York to Albuquerque, Liverpool and Nantes, this installation and its reception provide a more disconcerting, inflammable hybridized “theater of the everyday” unlike those with which I started this introduction, in a space where physical and digital identity formations merge to end up forming what Gillooly-Kress calls a “hypermediated haunted stage” with all too dangerous consequences. By way of conclusion, I want to thank Cheryl Black and Dorothy Chansky, the former and current ATDS Presidents, for offering another forum next to the 2016 VUB conference platform; the ATDS members who submitted their work to this Spring issue of the JADT ; and last but not least, the ATDS members who acted as anonymous peer-reviewers. All generously contributed to the scholarship here presented, offering what I hope is an exciting and thought-provoking sample of American postdramatic mediaturgies in which authorship is variously modulated along different spectra, operating between the human and the non-human, the analogue and the digital, the individual and the collective, the distributed and the delegated. References [1] For a brief presentation of the overall project see Jan Baetens, Johan Callens, Michel Delville, Heidi Peeters, Myriam Watthee-Delmotte, Robyn Warhol, and Bertrand Gervais, “Literature and Media Innovation: A Brief Research Update on a Genre/Medium Project,” Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift 64, no. 4 (2014): 485-492. [2] Jacob Gallagher-Ross, Theaters of the Everyday: Aesthetic Democracy on the American Stage (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2018), 152, original emphasis. [3] The VUB theatre conference program can be found online at http://www.vub.ac.be/en/events/2016/mediations-of-authorship-in-postdramatic-mediaturgies-conference . The March 17 event was matched the following day by a second series of talks, presented at Leuven University (UCL) under the title, “Intermediality, or, the Delicate Art of World-Layering” dealing with non-dramatic genres. See http://research.vub.ac.be/sites/default/files/uploads/clic-cri_confer_flyer_final.pdf . [4] Johan Callens,”Rosas: Reappropriation as Afterlife,” in Routledge Companion to Adaptation Studies , eds. Dennis Cutchins, Katja Krebs, and Eckart Voigts (London: Routledge, 2018), 117-127. [5] The Chomsky-Foucault debate was moderated by Fons Elders and broadcast in 1971 by Dutch television as part of a series. Elders first included the transcript in a collection of three interviews he edited, Reflexive Water: The Basic Concerns of Mankind (London: Souvenir Press, 1974). He reprinted it separately as Human Nature: Justice vs Power. The Chomsky-Foucault Debate (London: Souvenir Press, 2011), though by then A.I. Davidson had already released the text in Foucault and His Interlocutors (Chicago: Chicago UP, 1997), 107-145. Elders’s 2011 edition consists of an introduction, followed by the two-part transcript. The first part tackles the question of human nature, knowledge, and science, the second deals more with politics. [6] See Gerda Poschmann, Der nicht mehr dramatische Theatertext. Aktuelle Bühnenstücke und ihre dramaturgische Analyse (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1997) and Hans-Thies Lehmann, Postdramatic Theatre , trans. and introd. Karen Jürs-Munby (London: Routledge, 2006). [7] Marvin Carlson, “Postdramatic Theatre and Postdramatic Performance,” Brazilian Review of Presence Studies / Revista Brasileira de Etudos da Prescença 5, No. 3 (Sept.- Dec. 2015), 579. [8] Carlson, “Postdramatic Theatre and Postdramatic Performance,” 582. [9] Lehmann, Postdramatic Theater , 22. [10] The gap between European idealism and Emerson’s Transcendentalism is somewhat diminished in his theory of visuality, holding that sight, like language, is a way of inhabiting a visual field and integrating its objects, at the cost of distorting both by the idealizing operations of language and perspective, the visual distortions of the one and the other’s fixations by figures of speech and generic conventions, and we might add medium specificities. See Branka Arsić, On Leaving: A Reading in Emerson (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010), 55, 68, as discussed by Gallagher-Ross, Theaters of the Everyday , 50-51, 68. [11] See Johan Callens, “Auto/Biography in American Performance,” in Auto/Biography and Mediation , ed. Alfred Hornung (Heidelberg: Winter Universitätsverlag, 2010), 287-303. [12] Lehmann, Postdramatic Theatre , 2006: 43; rptd by Gallagher-Ross, Theaters of the Everyday , 18. [13] Lehmann, Postdramatic Theatre , 128. [14] Bonnie Marranca, “Performance as Design: The Mediaturgy of John Jesurun’s Firefall ,” PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 96 (2010), 16. [15] See also chapter 5, “Tech Support: Labor in the Global Theatres of The Builders Association and Rimini Protokoll,” of Jackson’s Social Works: Performing Art, Supporting Publics (London: Routledge, 2011), 144-181. [16] In fact, Weems has always combined creative with critical work, whether as a founding member of the V-Girls and Builders Association or as dramaturg for the Wooster Group, also co-directing Art Matters and lecturing at different universities. [17] Shannon Jackson and Marianne Weems, The Builders Association: Performance and Media in Contemporary Theater (Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 2015), 3. [18] Jackson and Weems, The Builders Association , xiii, 384-385. [19] Jackson and Weems, The Builders Association , 17. [20] Jackson and Weems, The Builders Association , 8, 393. [21] Faust/How I Rose , which The Builders Association used for Imperial Motel (Faust) (1996) and JUMP CUT (Faust) (1997-1998), received major runs at the National Theater of Mexico, while his Philoktetes , after featuring in Philoktetes Variations , as directed by Jan Ritsema in 1994, was revived in October 2007 by Jesurun himself at the SoHo Rep with a cast featuring Will Badgett (Odysseus), Louis Cancelmi (Philoktetes), and Jason Lew (Neoptolemus). See Johan Callens, “The Builders Association: S/he Do the Police in Different Voices,” in The Wooster Group and Its Traditions , ed. and introd. Johan Callens, Dramaturgies Series: Texts, Cultures, and Performances vol. 13 (Brussels & Bern: Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes-Peter Lang, 2004), 247-261; Johan Callens, “The Volatile Value of Suffering: Jan Ritsema’s PhiloktetesVariations,” in The Trojan Wars and the Making of the Modern World , ed. and introd. Adam J. Goldwyn, Studia Graeca Upsaliensia vol. 22 (Uppsala: Uppsala University Press, 2015), 223-244. 2015; and Christophe Collard, “Processual Passing: Ron Vawter Performs Philoktetes,” Somatechnics 3, No.1 (2013), 119-132. [22] See also Claire Swyzen, “‘The world as a list of items’: Database Dramaturgy in Low-Tech Theatre by Tim Etchells and De Tijd, Using Textual Data by Etchells, Handke and Shakespeare.” etum: E-Journal for Theatre and Media 2, No. 2 (2015), 59–84, accessed May 15, 2018, https://cris.vub.be/en/searchall.html?searchall=swyzen , for an interpretation of one British and two Flemish low-tech postdramatic mediaturgical productions: Broadcast/Looping Pieces (2014), Peter Handke en de wolf (2005) and Elk wat wils. Iets van Shakespeare (2007). [23] Roland Barthes, “Le mythe, aujourd’hui,”Mythologies (Paris: Seuil, 1957), 191-247; “Myth Today,” Mythologies , ed. and trans. Annette Lavers, Noonday Press (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1972), 109-164. Footnotes About The Author(s) Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Stages of Struggle and Celebration: A Production History of Black Theatre in Texas Immersions in Cultural Difference: Tourism, War, Performance Stage for Action: U.S. Social Activist Theatre in the 1940s Samuel Beckett’s Theatre in America: The Legacy of Alan Schneider as Beckett’s American Director The Contemporary American Monologue: Performance and Politics Black Performance on the Outskirts of the Left Introduction: Mediations of Authorship in American Postdramatic Mediaturgies Kaldor and Dorsen's "desktop performances" and the (Live) Coauthorship Paradox Ecologies of Media, Ecologies of Mind: Embodying Authorship Through Mediaturgy Dropping the Needle on the Record: Intermedial Contingency and Spalding Gray's Early Talk Performances #HEWILLNOTDIVIDEUS: Weaponizing Performance of Identity from the Digital to the Physical Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.