An epic journey. Lyrical language. A devoted dog. These are a few recognizable elements from the famed poem, The Odyssey, which playwright Suzan-Lori Parks uses as loose source material for Father Comes Home From the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3). A staple of high school curricula for generations, The Odyssey is one of the…
When I first encountered the work of Suzan-Lori Parks in the 1990s with her play Venus, I was struck both by her poetic, jazz-inspired language, and by her ability to exhume history and create relevance and resonance for contemporary audiences. With Venus, she explored the objectification, both past and present, of black women’s bodies by…
Among the Goodman’s artistic priorities is the examination of history—particularly events that, despite their impact on society, have not traditionally found a place in textbooks or in the popular consensus of what is considered historically important.
The Jim Crow era. The great migration of blacks from Southern to Northern cities. The Harlem Renaissance. The Civil Rights Movement. The 20th century’s horrors, triumphs, stagnations and progress are the stuff of history books now.
When the Delany sisters, born in 1889 and 1891, were small children, they could sit anywhere they pleased on streetcars in their hometown of Raleigh, North Carolina.
Artistic Director Robert Falls’ adaptation of An Enemy of the People is the latest in Goodman Theatre’s six-decade history of producing Henrik Ibsen and works inspired by the writer’s plays. 1953 David B. Itkin, director of the Goodman Memorial Theatre, helms a production of The Master Builder. 1962 Melvin Bernhardt directs Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, with…
Any theater artist will inevitably confront the genius of 19th century Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. Often dubbed “The Father of Modern Drama,” Ibsen wrote plays that differed from his forerunners’ in both style and subject matter. Portraying life “just as it is” had never been a goal for playwrights in previous eras: the ancient Greeks…
From cooking to showering, fresh coffee and laundry, we often take the availability of clean water for granted. Yet when Henrik Ibsen wrote An Enemy of the People in 1882, the specialty of bacteriology was in its infancy, and viruses had yet to be discovered, so scientists had just begun to understand how diseases could…
It’s never been easy to be a teenage girl. Between cafeteria politics, pressure to succeed in academics and extra-curricular activities and facing issues of self-esteem, body image and hyper-sexualization, teenage girls manage an extraordinary amount of expectations both from within their peer group and the world of adults. The inner lives of teenage girls are…
“Nine girls in uniform stretch in a circle on an AstroTurf indoor soccer field. They do the same stretch at the same time for the same amount of time.” This first stage direction in The Wolves introduces us to the activity that the 16- and 17-year-old characters will do for most of the play: warming…
