Synopsis
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)
About the Authors
Amy Muse is Professor of English at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, USA. She is the author of The Drama and Theatre of Sarah Ruhl (Methuen Drama, 2018) and essays on dramatic literature, intimate theatre, and travel that have appeared in The Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, Text & Presentation, Romanticism: The Journal of Romantic Culture & Criticism, Frontiers, and The Journal of Greek Media and Culture.
Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr. is professor of theatre arts at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, USA, the author and editor of ten books including The Empire Triumphant: Race, Religion and Rebellion in the Star Wars Films, and a contributor to numerous volumes on sci-fi, pop culture and religion, including essays on Godzilla, Star Wars, and Battlestar Galactica. His areas of expertise include Japanese theatre, African theatre, Shakespeare, Greek tragedy, stage combat and comedy. He is co-editor with Patrick Lonergan of Bloomsbury Methuen Drama's Critical Companions series.
Patrick Lonergan is Professor of Drama and Theatre Studies at University of Galway, Ireland.
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