Sunday, January 22, 2012
Can Women Write Good Plays?
2AMt: I’m 22 years old, a student at NYU’s Dramatic Writing Program. I’m sitting in a coffee shop, surrounded by friends. The topic of conversation is how a teacher admitted that he couldn’t name a female playwright he liked. I don’t know if this story is true. I don’t care since I don’t have a class with him.
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4 comments:
it is interesting to see the progression of the issue over time through the authors perspective. this article definitely shows this topic in a light i would never see it. but the author mentions that female playwrights may find themselves being produced in a theatre that prides itself for being "progressive or socially aware." is that why she wants to get produced? because of a social issue? or because she wrote a quality piece of art..
So the opening question is a good one and I would argue yes, women can write good plays. We see that people cannot recall past female playwrights as easily, but I am inclined to believe that that is a product of the time and not of the quality. Men had more ability to have plays produced and being produced is a fairly large component of being known. Also, the arguement that people think women can only write women's stories is irrelevant. Women's stories can be just as powerful, and the majority of the theatre audience is women, so "women's stories" should be just if not more impacting.
I think that why it is hard to think of good women play writes is because there weren't really any women play writes until recent history. Two of my favorite play writes, Mary Zimmerman and Sarah Ruhl, are women. Sarah Ruhl does write plays about women but I would not say they are for women and Mary Zimmerman's plays are all over the place in terms of content. So this brings me to the question would it really be that bad if women did write plays about women. Apparently no one else is doing it, and women are about half the population so it seems to be a valid thing to write about. Also I find that the best writers use things that they know and if you are a women you most likely know how women think and feel.
Women belong in the kitchen. They should not be allowed to drive cars, vote, or use the internet. Cleaning well-decorated homes entirely by way of toothbrush while they wait for their unattractive chauvinistic husbands to come home sweaty from work should be their ideal. They should bask in this time of the day; rushing over to remove said husband's shoes and kiss said husband's feet. No woman should weigh over 120 pounds. Every woman should bear at least two children while maintaining this weight. As history tells us, only men are capable of performing good, dutiful, and righteous tasks. History is never wrong.
But yes, women can most certainly write good plays.
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