Bethany

by Laura Marks

Overview

Winner, 2014 PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Emerging American Playwright Award
 
At the height of the foreclosure crisis, single mother Crystal loses more than her house. She struggles to stay positive, though—with plenty of help from a roommate with conspiracy theories, a motivational speaker with a secret, and her colleagues at the local Saturn dealership. But optimism is no match for a bad economy, and before long Crystal’s desperate quest to regain what she’s lost turns into the fight of her life. This darkly comic thriller explores just how far we’ll go to get back what’s ours.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780810129986
Publisher:	Northwestern University Press
Publication date:	05/20/2014
Pages:	88
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.20(d)

About the Author

Laura Marks is a graduate of Juilliard, an alumna of the Public Theater’s Emerging Writers Group, and a Resident Playwright at New Dramatists. Her work has been developed at the Public Theater, Steppenwolf, Manhattan Theatre Club, the Lark, and the Women’s Project, among other venues.

Editorial Reviews

Without stepping over the line into moralizing—or editorializing—Ms. Marks’s disturbing, incisive drama suggests that the bruising exigencies of our depressed economy are scraping away at the surface civilities of American life, making it harder for people to heed their moral compasses.” —Charles Isherwood, New York Times


“Impressively, the playwright, Laura Marks, has managed to wrench something almost Greek out of yesterday’s headlines and, with a supremely balanced sense of storytelling and an economic gift for language, announces herself here as a real talent to watch.”  —New Yorker




“In Hebrew, the word ‘Bethany’ means ‘house of misery’ or ‘poor house.’ But don’t let the etymology fool you. There are dramatic riches here.” —Village Voice





“A brisk Hobbesian thriller.” —New York magazine

From the Publisher