The Liquid Plain

by Naomi Wallace

“American theater needs more plays like Naomi Wallace’s The Liquid Plain —by which I mean works that are historical, epic and poetic, that valorize the lives of the poor and oppressed.”— Time Out New York On the docks of late eighteenth-century Rhode Island, two runaway slaves find love and a near-drowned man. With a motley band of sailors, they plan a desperate and daring run to freedom. As the mysteries of their identities come to light, painful truths about the past and present collide and flow into the next generation. Acclaimed playwright Naomi Wallace’s newest work brings to life a group of people whose stories have been erased from history. Told with lyricism and power, The Liquid Plain was awarded the 2012 Horton Foote Prize for Promising New American Play. This sweeping historical saga has enjoyed acclaimed runs at Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the Signature Theatre in New York. Naomi Wallace is a playwright from Kentucky. Her plays, which have been produced in the United Kingdom, Europe, the United States, and the Middle East, include In the Heart of America , Slaughter City , One Flea Spare , The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek , Things of Dry Hours , The Fever Three Visions of the Middle East , And I and Silence , The Hard Weather Boating Party , and The Liquid Plain . Awards include the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize (twice), Joseph Kesselring Prize, Fellowship of Southern Writers Drama Award, Obie Award, Horton Foote Award for Most Promising New American Play, MacArthur Fellowship, and the inaugural Windham Campbell Prize for Drama.

Genres: Plays

130 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2015

About the author

Naomi Wallace is an American playwright, screenwriter and poet from Kentucky. She is widely known for her plays, and has received several distinguished awards for her work.

Her Finborough Theatre productions include And I And Silence, which subsequently transferred to Signature Theater, New York City. Other theatre productions include In the Heart of America (Bush Theatre), Slaughter City (Royal Shakespeare Company), One Flea Spare (Public Theater, New York City), The Trestle at Pope Lick Creekand Things of Dry Hours (New York Theatre Workshop), The Fever Chart: Three Visions of the Middle East (Public Theater, New York City), and Night is a Room (Signature Theater, New York City).

Naomi has been awarded the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize twice, the Fellowship of Southern Writers Drama Award, the Obie Award and the Horton Foote Award. She is also a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts development grant. In 2013, Naomi received the inaugural Windham Campbell Prize for Drama, and in 2015 an Arts and Letters Award in Literature. Her play One Flea Spare was recently incorporated into the permanent repertoire of the French National Theatre, La Comédie-Française. Only two American playwrights have been added to La Comédie’s repertoire in two hundred years, the other being Tennessee Williams.

Reviews

[Angelique · Rating 4 out of 5]

My copy from Signature Theatre I don't think is on goodreads.

Plays aren't meant to be read and I really felt it here. I'd need to see it on stage. It takes on a lot and depends on the world it creates. It's engaging and well written, but it's hard to comment without seeing it.

Also I'm not sure this subject matter is for Naomi Wallace to be commenting on?

[Eli Campbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

everyone read this play it's grotesque and beautiful