Shhhh

by Clare Barron

Genres: Plays, Queer

88 pages, Paperback

Published October 5, 2023

About the author

Clare Barron is a playwright and actor from Wenatchee, Washington. She won the 2015 Obie Award for Playwriting for You Got Older. She was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Dance Nation.

Source: Wikipedia

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Ethan Washington · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bizarre even for me.

[Diana Rendon · Rating 4 out of 5]

gross, weird, freaky. love it. clare barron has such a specific voice for all of the unusual stuff we think and desperately want to say out loud, but often can’t, not even to ourselves. something about just how bizarre and disgusting some of the content of her work is (especially in this play) makes us feel less alone <3

[Amy Young · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a big Clare Barron fan (Dance Nation? You Got Older? YAY! I worked at Woolly Mammoth when they produced Baby Screams Miracle and that was a trip), and I sympathize with writing as a form of personal understanding, which Barron states upfront this is. Or at least it started that way, and in the reading I don't think the ideas strayed too far from her initial exploration.

Shhhh is focused entirely on intimacy and how the trauma that is too often associated with women's romantic encounters keeps us away from ourselves. That topic, as pervasive as it is in our lived experience, is intense enough to make the plot rather singular. And there's no room, as a viewer, to find something other than a lot of confusion, obfuscation, and pain. At least for me.

This is a very personal exploration for Barron, understandably. It's one that remains personal and speaks to a specific facet of the coming-of-age. I wish there was more to hold on to here, but happy to be convinced otherwise.

[Athena Psihudakis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love. Super cool. Addresses consent in a great way. Reminded me of fleabag. Want to play one of the 2 girls in the coffee shop. Oh and I love how the writer chose to title Sarah as witchy witch even though she is only addressed as Sarah in the show. Interesting to look into

[Reagan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestly a little all over the place, I love the writing and the characters but I wish they would have DONE more. The concept had so much potential but I think parts of it are almost a little trauma-porn-esque and there was more that could have been done with the plot

[Liz Gutridge · Rating 5 out of 5]

clare’s best play yet, for the girlies, the references and concepts are just so specific to the female experience i am so obsessed

[Carissa Barry-Moilanen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think I loved this and also the whole time my brain was like “???!!!”

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nuts and completely moving. In competition with Duncan Macmillan's "People, Places and Things" for my favourite monologue (Sandra, pg. 39-44). Really quite special actually.

[Sam Dyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Big fan of Dance Nation, but this one was just a little too everywhere for me. Still, Barron rocks.

[chelsea · Rating 3 out of 5]

favorite part was the two women in the pizza parlor. freaky deaky

[clara · Rating 5 out of 5]

ow ow ow ow ow ow

[Nik · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think Clare Barron is the master of writing about things in a crazy way

[Arianna Schrage · Rating 4 out of 5]

"if someone were to give me a button and say: if you push this button you could kill all the heterosexual men in the world - i would be ethically obligated to push that button"

[Taylor Rah · Rating 4 out of 5]

i read plays now. contemporary ones. this is proof

[colin :) · Rating 4 out of 5]

perfectly freakish!!!

[gabby · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5~ weirdest, freakiest play i have ever read..but honestly i appreciate it. thank you for giving a good stretch monologue for acting🙏