Marsha Norman

About a woman being released from prison, and her history. The woman is split into two characters--Arlie, the rebellious lively girl who entered prison after a robbery gone wrong, and Arlene, the chastened parolee trying to make a life for herself. There isn't really any hope in the play, but at the end Arlene and Arlie accept each other. Arlie/Arlene has been misused and abused, and her resilience and survival strategies are remarkable. But in the end, she is only surviving. As society show more begins to reckon with the cost of the patriarchy, this pain is all too familiar. show less

it hurts and it's brutal & yet it's extraordinarily comforting to read because something about it is so mundane when it's anything but

I liked this book a lot- it is a very direct treatise on the arbitrariness of attitudes about suicide. Challenges both the notion that suicide is always a terrible thing and that one does not have the right to do it. The point: who are we to tell another person that they are making the wrong choice? Aren't they in a better position to judge that? These are big questions.

This is my favorite play. And yes, that includes Shakespeare. There isn't a whole lot that happens, but I love the way that Norman slowly builds tension through the smallest acts. From the first line Jessie's mind is made up, and she spends the next ninety minutes preparing her mother for a time when she won't be there for her anymore. It's sad to see how Jessie's life has come to this point, and heartbreaking to watch the final interactions between her and her mother.