Beauty's Daughter, Monster, the Gimmick
Three Plays
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group · Print & ebook · October 17, 2000
The sheer exuberance of language that pours forth in Dael Orlandersmith's plays has dazzled critics and audiences alike.
We earn from qualifying purchases.
- Who it’s for
- Three plays trace how Diane, Theresa, and Alexis use words to imagine lives beyond constricted circumstances.
- Themes
- Self-expression through words, Escaping constricted circumstances, Unfulfilled aspirations
- Genres
- African American Plays, Plays by Women, American Plays
Nearest books
Matched by what the books are about, then ordered by what their readers also loved. Most of these share its genres: African American Plays and American Plays.
Detroit '67Dominique Morisseau58% match
VenusSuzan-Lori Parks50% match
FencesAugust Wilson50% match
Les Blancs: the Collected Last PlaysLorraine Hansberry, Robert Nemiroff61% matchAlso shares Plays by Women
Notes From the FieldAnna Deavere Smith59% match
Dutchman and the SlaveLeroi Jones59% match
The American Theatre Wing Presents: the Play That Changed My LifeBen Hodges55% match
Funnyhouse of a NegroAdrienne Kennedy55% matchAlso shares Plays by Women
For younger readers: What I Must Tell the World, Enter the Body, Concrete Kids
Start with three books, and this one can be the first.
Members get a new edition every morning: a route out from their books to essays, research and talks, with the reason for each.
Start with this bookAbout this book
The sheer exuberance of language that pours forth in Dael Orlandersmith's plays has dazzled critics and audiences alike. In these three pieces, the award-winning writer and performer celebrates the power of words to rescue the young black women she portrays from their constricted worlds. In the Obie Award-winning play "Beauty's Daughter," Diane yearns to free herself from her soul-deadening surroundings, where people drown their unfulfilled aspirations in drugs and alcohol.
Continue reading
In "Monster," Theresa imagines a life in the rock-'n'-roll poetry bohemia of Manhattan's Lower East Side and away from her home in East Harlem, where she is scorned as a misfit. And in "The Gimmick," Alexis escapes her brutal reality among the library bookshelves, where she dreams of becoming a writer in Paris. Charged with fearless wisdom, these three electrifying plays transform rage-filled ghetto experience into a triumph of rhapsodic expression.
Words and Escape
Three plays trace how Diane, Theresa, and Alexis use words to imagine lives beyond constricted circumstances.
Come here for
- Three plays centered on young Black women and the power of words
- Diane, Theresa, and Alexis each imagine a life beyond constriction
Expect
- Separate portraits in Beauty’s Daughter, Monster, and The Gimmick
- Dreams tied to Manhattan’s Lower East Side, East Harlem, and Paris
Where it sits
| African American Plays | 80% |
|---|---|
| American Plays | 40% |
| Plays by Women | 39% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- African American Plays
- Plays by Women
- Women Authors Collections
- Authors
- Dael Orlandersmith
- Publisher
- Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
- Published
- October 17, 2000
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Theme
- Self-expression through words · Escaping constricted circumstances · Unfulfilled aspirations
- Reading lane
- African American Plays