maddy7171's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.0
dkrane's review against another edition
4.0
In the blood—5.
Fucking A-3.
Blood is devastating modern rewrite. God. That ending.
A is similarly tragic. Little more scattered though. Unclear about purpose of fake foreign language.
Fucking A-3.
Blood is devastating modern rewrite. God. That ending.
A is similarly tragic. Little more scattered though. Unclear about purpose of fake foreign language.
yourmainjoe's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault
thesundayman's review against another edition
sad
fast-paced
4.5
In In the blood there is little world and only characters. We are rarely allowed hints of a society, what with the wellfare lady and Reverend D., but it's never a system or an explanation of Hesters situation, it's actually implied that she has been placed in shelters and put to work and that she is where she is on her own accord.
On the other hand in Fucking A the society in witch we are place is clear surrealist wasteland that borderlines Dada and kafkaesque. Things far too real for us such us the violent policing and the villainization of abortion are placed in this absurd world with 'Talk' and gold coins. This is not a story about Hester this is a story about Hesters world and how it failed her.
And I think here Parks shows the two sides of the scarlet letter Hester (and of the women she represents) one is the young naive girl that made young naive choices that will hunt her forever, the other is the society that put her in that put her there, that deemed those choices to be bad
What stuck with me from it more where the hunters when they where describing how they torture the criminals they catch, its so bad it feels fake and it matches with that fake world, yet its also far too real and somewhere in the back of your head you feel like you have heard what they are saying before.
jenna0010's review against another edition
5.0
Suzan-Lori Parks brings figures, figments from the here and now that is also the past and the yet to come to her sparse stagings that can only be described as gutsy. There is blood. There is love. There is desperation. I will come back to these, read many more of her works and words, and hopefully maybe see them performed one day.
ostrowk's review against another edition
4.0
HESTER: My kids is mine. I get rid of em what do I got? Nothing. I got nothing ow, but if I lose them I got less than nothing. (28)
HESTER: Sometimes you cant win. No matter what you do. (32)
The RED LETTER PLAYS are dark. My classmate talked about how Hester, her children, and other (women) characters suffer such merciless abjection (at the hands of men, other women, the church, the state) that it circles back on itself to make you realize holy shit our society's totally totally fucked up. I get that. I think that's exactly what happened.
HESTER: Sometimes you cant win. No matter what you do. (32)
The RED LETTER PLAYS are dark. My classmate talked about how Hester, her children, and other (women) characters suffer such merciless abjection (at the hands of men, other women, the church, the state) that it circles back on itself to make you realize holy shit our society's totally totally fucked up. I get that. I think that's exactly what happened.
cheraford's review against another edition
5.0
Read these for book club and was completely blown away. Outside of the stories themselves, I found the way she structures the plays different and very interesting
sacmersault's review against another edition
5.0
Wow! Amazing plays, specially In the Blood. The colloquial speaking of the characters, the troubles that real people in extreme circumstances go through, a mother's love above all, etc... It caught my heart and made me relate and made me be in these social problems. It was very tragic in the Greek sense and I loved it for that.
dumaurier's review against another edition
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Child abuse, Rape, and Emotional abuse