The Theatre of Naomi Wallace : Embodied Dialogues

Naomi Wallace, an American playwright based in Britain, is one of the more original and provocative voices in contemporary theatre. Her poetic, erotically-charged, and politically engaged plays have been seen in London's West End, off-Broadway, at the Comédie-Française, in regional and provincial theaters, and on college campuses around the world. Known for their intimate, sensual encounters examining the relationship between identity and power, Wallace's works have attracted a wide range of theatre practitioners, including such important directors as Dominic Dromgoole, Ron Daniels, Jo Bonney, and Kwame Kwei-Armah. Drawing on scholars, activists, historians, and theatre artists in the United States, Canada, Britain, and the Middle East, this anthology of essays presents a comprehensive overview of Wallace's body of work that will be of use to theatre practitioners, students, scholars, and educators alike. Front Matter....Pages i-xvi Introduction: The Discourse of the Body....Pages 1-16 Front Matter....Pages 17-17 Death and Desire, Apocalypse, and Utopia: Feminist Gestus and the Utopian Performative in the Plays of Naomi Wallace....Pages 19-34 Love in a Wound....Pages 35-44 Messianic Marxism in Naomi Wallace’s Slaughter City and Things of Dry Hours....Pages 45-56 An American Exile in America....Pages 57-64 The City that Embraced Naomi Wallace....Pages 65-70 Naomi Wallace and the Dramaturgy of Rehearsal....Pages 71-87 Naomi Wallace and the Politics of Desire....Pages 89-102 Crucial Unspeakables, or Pedagogies of the Repressed: Directing Sex in the Plays of Naomi Wallace....Pages 103-116 Mapping The Inland Sea: Naomi Wallace’s British Epic Drama....Pages 117-125 Slip’s Bluff....Pages 127-134 Journeys into the Heart of Whiteness: A Labor Historian Looks at the Work of Naomi Wallace....Pages 135-154 Unbearable Intimacies: Occupation, Utopia, and Creative Destruction in The Fever Chart....Pages 155-167 To Girl or Not to Girl....Pages 169-187 Front Matter....Pages 189-189 Standing on Your Head....Pages 191-193 Naomi Is Inside My Head....Pages 195-198 Designing Wallace....Pages 199-201 In the Fields of Naomi Wallace....Pages 203-206 Radical Poetry....Pages 207-209 Being the “Other”: Naomi Wallace and The Middle East....Pages 211-213 Front Matter....Pages 189-189 Translating Wallace....Pages 215-217 Betting on Naomi and The Boss....Pages 219-222 Mindscapes of Palestine....Pages 223-225 Directing Wallace....Pages 227-229 Beautiful Resistance....Pages 231-234 The Facts of Love....Pages 235-239 Nettle Soup....Pages 241-243 Front Matter....Pages 245-245 Strange Times....Pages 247-250 Seven Poems....Pages 251-256 Let the Right One In: On Resistance, Hospitality and New Writing for the American Stage....Pages 257-264 Manifesto....Pages 265-266 We Are Also Each Other....Pages 267-269 The Fish Story....Pages 271-274 The Tal Pidae Lehrstücke....Pages 275-279 On Writing as Transgression....Pages 281-286 Back Matter....Pages 287-320 Known for their intimate, sensual encounters that examine the relationship between identity and power, playwright Naomi Wallace's works are critically examined for the first time. Naomi Wallace, an American playwright based in Britain, is one of the more original and provocative voices in contemporary theatre. Her poetic, erotically-charged, and politically engaged plays have been seen in London's West End, off-Broadway, at the Comedie-Francaise, in regional and provincial theaters, and on college campuses around the world. Known for their intimate, sensual encounters examining the relationship between identity and power, Wallace's works have attracted a wide range of theatre practitioners, including such important directors as Dominic Dromgoole, Ron Daniels, Jo Bonney, and Kwame Kwei-Armah. Drawing on scholars, activists, historians, and theatre artists in the United States, Canada, Britain, and the Middle East, this anthology of essays presents a comprehensive overview of Wallace's body of work that will be of use to theatre practitioners, students, scholars, and educators alike Naomi Wallace, an American playwright living in Britain, is one of the more original and provocative voices in contemporary theatre. Her poetic, erotically-charged and politically engaged plays have been featured in London's West End, off-Broadway, at the Comedie-Francaise, and in regional and provincial theatres throughout the English-speaking world.