Description

Book Synopsis
Foregrounds some of the ways in which women playwrights from across a range of contexts and working in a variety of forms and styles are illuminating the contemporary world while also contributing to its reshaping as they reflect, rethink, and reimagine it through their work for the stage.

Table of Contents
  • Contents
  • Acknowledgments
  • Introduction: Critical Visions
  • Penny Farfan
  • I. Replaying the Canon
  • 1. Feminist Adaptations / Adaptations of Feminism: Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad
  • Penny Farfan
  • 2. Indigenizing the Colonial Narrative: Leah Purcell’s The Drover’s Wife
  • Denise Varney
  • 3. Does Revenge Fall Softly? YaËl Farber’s Molora
  • Catherine Cole
  • 4. Indecent Collaborations and / in Queer Time(s)
  • Katie N. Johnson and Sara L. Warner
  • II. Representing Histories
  • 5. The Bloodstained Distance: Adrienne Kennedy’s He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box
  • Alisa Solomon
  • 6. Unmaking a Devil’s Bargain: Suzan-Lori Parks’s Father Comes Home from the Wars and the Idea of America
  • Soyica Diggs Colbert and Robert J. Patterson
  • 7. “A Change Is Gonna Come?” Protest and Racial Progress in debbie tucker green’s ear for eye
  • Lynette Goddard
  • 8. Maternal Agency and Reproductive Justice in Lisa Loomer’s Roe
  • Sharon L. Green
  • III. Staging Lives
  • 9. The Mythic Migrant, the Witnessing Self: HÉlÈne Cixous and Le Dernier CaravansÉrail: OdyssÉes
  • Emine Fisek
  • 10. Exceptional Embodiment in Anna Deavere Smith’s Let Me Down Easy
  • Ryan Claycomb
  • 11. Acting and Reenacting the Malvinas/Falklands War in Lola Arias’s Minefield/Campo minado
  • Paola S. HernÁndez
  • 12. Fun Home: Lesbian Feminism Meets Broadway Musical Theatre
  • Stacy Wolf
  • IV. Re-imagining Family
  • 13. A ‘rock inside the flesh’: Motherwork in Marie Clements’s The Unnatural and Accidental Women
  • Karen Bamford and Sheila Rabillard
  • 14. Quiara Hudes’s Water by the Spoonful and the Dramaturgy of Free Jazz
  • Natalie Alvarez and Jimena Ortuzar
  • 15. British Muslim Feminism and the Marriage Trap: Alia Bano’s Shades
  • Meenakshi Ponnuswami
  • 16. Lesbian Interspecies Performance: Holly Hughes’s The Dog and Pony Show (bring your own pony)
  • Kim Marra
  • V. Navigating Communities
  • 17. Bread of Life: Whiti Hereaka’s Rewena
  • Diana Looser
  • 18. Transcultural Memory and Food in Julia Cho’s Aubergine
  • Esther Kim Lee
  • 19. Truth and Absurdity on the London Stage: Liwaa Yazji’s Goats and its Audiences Margaret Litvin with Liwaa Yazji
  • 20. “I Will Tend Your Garden”: The Terms of Proximity in Grace PassÔ’s Por Elise
  • Honey Crawford
  • VI. Articulating Intersections
  • 21. Dominique Morisseau’s Blood at the Root: Intersectionality and the Jena Six
  • Juliet Guzzetta
  • 22. Economic Disenfranchisement and Gender Inequality in Emma Dante’s mPalermu
  • Francesca Spedalieri
  • 23. The Magic of Change: Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig’s The World of Extreme Happiness
  • Xing Fan
  • 24. “But nostalgia’s a disease”: Viewing Lynn Nottage’s Sweat in the Age of Trump
  • Courtney Elkin Mohler
  • VII. New World Order(s)
  • 25. Miss Piggy the Seer in the Land of Trump’s Blind: Elfriede Jelinek’s On the Royal Road: The Burgher King
  • Sue-Ellen Case
  • 26. Has She “Escaped Alone” to Tell Us? Caryl Churchill: ‘Messenger’ for the Twenty-First Century
  • Rosemary Malague
  • 27. Climate Change and the Capitalocene in Colleen Murphy’s The Breathing Hole
  • Wendy Arons
  • 28. The Ghosts of Greenham Common in Lucy Kirkwood’s The Children
  • Lesley Ferris
  • Afterwords: Emerging Currents: Fighting on Two Fronts
  • Lesley Ferris
  • Notes on Contributors

Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Plays by

Product form

£69.30

Includes FREE delivery

RRP £72.95 – you save £3.65 (5%)

Order before 4pm today for delivery by Tue 23 Dec 2025.

A Hardback by Lesley Ferris

15 in stock


    View other formats and editions of Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Plays by by

    Publisher: The University of Michigan Press
    Publication Date: 7/30/2021 12:00:00 AM
    ISBN13: 9780472074358, 978-0472074358
    ISBN10: 0472074350
    Also in:
    Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000 Literary studies: from c 2000 Gender studies: women and girls

    Description

    Book Synopsis
    Foregrounds some of the ways in which women playwrights from across a range of contexts and working in a variety of forms and styles are illuminating the contemporary world while also contributing to its reshaping as they reflect, rethink, and reimagine it through their work for the stage.

    Table of Contents
    • Contents
    • Acknowledgments
    • Introduction: Critical Visions
    • Penny Farfan
    • I. Replaying the Canon
    • 1. Feminist Adaptations / Adaptations of Feminism: Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad
    • Penny Farfan
    • 2. Indigenizing the Colonial Narrative: Leah Purcell’s The Drover’s Wife
    • Denise Varney
    • 3. Does Revenge Fall Softly? YaËl Farber’s Molora
    • Catherine Cole
    • 4. Indecent Collaborations and / in Queer Time(s)
    • Katie N. Johnson and Sara L. Warner
    • II. Representing Histories
    • 5. The Bloodstained Distance: Adrienne Kennedy’s He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box
    • Alisa Solomon
    • 6. Unmaking a Devil’s Bargain: Suzan-Lori Parks’s Father Comes Home from the Wars and the Idea of America
    • Soyica Diggs Colbert and Robert J. Patterson
    • 7. “A Change Is Gonna Come?” Protest and Racial Progress in debbie tucker green’s ear for eye
    • Lynette Goddard
    • 8. Maternal Agency and Reproductive Justice in Lisa Loomer’s Roe
    • Sharon L. Green
    • III. Staging Lives
    • 9. The Mythic Migrant, the Witnessing Self: HÉlÈne Cixous and Le Dernier CaravansÉrail: OdyssÉes
    • Emine Fisek
    • 10. Exceptional Embodiment in Anna Deavere Smith’s Let Me Down Easy
    • Ryan Claycomb
    • 11. Acting and Reenacting the Malvinas/Falklands War in Lola Arias’s Minefield/Campo minado
    • Paola S. HernÁndez
    • 12. Fun Home: Lesbian Feminism Meets Broadway Musical Theatre
    • Stacy Wolf
    • IV. Re-imagining Family
    • 13. A ‘rock inside the flesh’: Motherwork in Marie Clements’s The Unnatural and Accidental Women
    • Karen Bamford and Sheila Rabillard
    • 14. Quiara Hudes’s Water by the Spoonful and the Dramaturgy of Free Jazz
    • Natalie Alvarez and Jimena Ortuzar
    • 15. British Muslim Feminism and the Marriage Trap: Alia Bano’s Shades
    • Meenakshi Ponnuswami
    • 16. Lesbian Interspecies Performance: Holly Hughes’s The Dog and Pony Show (bring your own pony)
    • Kim Marra
    • V. Navigating Communities
    • 17. Bread of Life: Whiti Hereaka’s Rewena
    • Diana Looser
    • 18. Transcultural Memory and Food in Julia Cho’s Aubergine
    • Esther Kim Lee
    • 19. Truth and Absurdity on the London Stage: Liwaa Yazji’s Goats and its Audiences Margaret Litvin with Liwaa Yazji
    • 20. “I Will Tend Your Garden”: The Terms of Proximity in Grace PassÔ’s Por Elise
    • Honey Crawford
    • VI. Articulating Intersections
    • 21. Dominique Morisseau’s Blood at the Root: Intersectionality and the Jena Six
    • Juliet Guzzetta
    • 22. Economic Disenfranchisement and Gender Inequality in Emma Dante’s mPalermu
    • Francesca Spedalieri
    • 23. The Magic of Change: Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig’s The World of Extreme Happiness
    • Xing Fan
    • 24. “But nostalgia’s a disease”: Viewing Lynn Nottage’s Sweat in the Age of Trump
    • Courtney Elkin Mohler
    • VII. New World Order(s)
    • 25. Miss Piggy the Seer in the Land of Trump’s Blind: Elfriede Jelinek’s On the Royal Road: The Burgher King
    • Sue-Ellen Case
    • 26. Has She “Escaped Alone” to Tell Us? Caryl Churchill: ‘Messenger’ for the Twenty-First Century
    • Rosemary Malague
    • 27. Climate Change and the Capitalocene in Colleen Murphy’s The Breathing Hole
    • Wendy Arons
    • 28. The Ghosts of Greenham Common in Lucy Kirkwood’s The Children
    • Lesley Ferris
    • Afterwords: Emerging Currents: Fighting on Two Fronts
    • Lesley Ferris
    • Notes on Contributors

    Recently viewed products

    © 2025 Book Curl

      • American Express
      • Apple Pay
      • Diners Club
      • Discover
      • Google Pay
      • Maestro
      • Mastercard
      • PayPal
      • Shop Pay
      • Union Pay
      • Visa

      Login

      Forgot your password?

      Don't have an account yet?
      Create account