The Drama and Theatre of Sarah Ruhl

Description

Sarah Ruhl is one of the most highly-acclaimed and frequently-produced American playwrights of the 21st century. Author of eighteen plays and the essay collection 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write, she has won a MacArthur "Genius" Grant and the Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award, been nominated for a Tony Award for In the Next Room or the vibrator play and twice been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for The Clean House and In the Next Room. Ruhl is a writer unafraid of the soul. She writes not about "this or that issue," but "about being," creating plays that ask "big questions about death, love, and how we should treat each other in this lifetime." In this volume, Amy Muse situates Ruhl as an artist-thinker and organizes her work around its artistic and ethical concerns. Through a finely-grained account of each play, readers are guided through Ruhl's early influences, the themes of intimacy, transcendence, and communion, and her inventive stagecraft to dramatize "moments of being" onstage. Enriched by essays from scholars Jill Stevenson, Thomas Butler, and Christina Dokou, an interview with directors Sarah Rasmussen and Hayley Finn, and a chronology of Ruhl's life and work, this is a companionable guide for students of American drama and theatre studies. Amy Muse specializes in dramatic literature and performance studies at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, where she is Associate Professor and Chair of the English Department. She is the author of "Sarah Ruhl's Sex Ed for Grownups" (Text & Presentation 2013) and essays on Romantic drama, intimate theatre, female Hamlets, and travel in Romantic Circles, Romanticism: The Journal of Romantic Culture & Criticism, Frontiers, and other journals. METHUEN DRAMA CRITICAL COMPANIONS Series Editors: Patrick Lonergan (National University of Ireland, Galway) and Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr. (Loyola Marymount University, USA)

Amy Muse is associate professor and Chair of the English Department at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, USA.

Muse's generous and affectionate approach ... might challenge some institutional notions of scholarship, but her critical methodology emulates and illuminates one of the hallmarks of Ruhl's style, an 'aesthetic of lightness.' ... For researchers, it provides an excellent overview of Ruhl's canon. Playwrights looking to experiment with new forms will appreciate Muse's detailed descriptions of the specific way that Ruhl constructs her plays. * Theatre Journal * A comprehensive survey of Ruhl's plays to date ... Provides valuable insight into Ruhl's unique theatricality and her ability to capture audiences and invite them into a work to experience the 'soulfulness' at its heart. The volume concludes with three critical essays, a useful chronology of Ruhl's life and work, and detailed notes. * CHOICE *