Letters From Max

by Sarah Ruhl

Genres: Plays

72 pages, Paperback

Published June 1, 2024

About the author

Sarah Ruhl (born 1974) is an American playwright. She is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award for a distinguished American playwright in mid-career.

Originally, she intended to be a poet. However, after she studied under Paula Vogel at Brown University (A.B., 1997; M.F.A., 2001), she was persuaded to switch to playwriting. Her first play was The Dog Play, written in 1995 for one of Vogel's classes. Her roots in poetry can be seen in the way she uses language in her plays. She also did graduate work at Pembroke College, Oxford.

In September 2006, she received a MacArthur Fellowship. The announcement of that award stated: "Sarah Ruhl, 32, playwright, New York City. Playwright creating vivid and adventurous theatrical works that poignantly juxtapose the mundane aspects of daily life with mythic themes of love and war."

Reviews

[Ellis Clay · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot recommend this play enough, it has brought me to tears in public spaces. I yearn to see this play on stage but I know I’d cry non-stop within a theatre as I near to wailing. A play where I find myself connecting to Max mora than I would want to admit to myself, and deeply afraid of distance between the friends I’ve come to love in these past four years. Yet through distance this play has shown me how such a connection can remain.

[Bill · Rating 2 out of 5]

Play about friendship developed out of intellect and connection. Witty intellectual sparring made til the end.

[John Perine]

as far as epistolary plays go, it certainly isn’t Ruhl’s best