How to Defend Yourself

Yale Drama Series

by Liliana Padilla, Ayad Akhtar (Contributor)

A Yale Drama Series-winning play about self-defense, desire, and healing in the aftermath of a college rape

Seven college students gather for a DIY self-defense workshop after a sorority sister is raped. They practice using their bodies as weapons. They wrestle with their desires. They learn the limits of self-defense.
 
This new play by writer, director, actor, and community builder Liliana Padilla explores the intersection of sex, community, and what it means to heal in a violent world. Padilla shows how learning self-defense becomes a channel for these college students’ rage, anxiety, confusion, trauma, and desire. The play examines what one wants, how to ask for it, and the ways rape culture threatens one’s body and sense of belonging.
 
It is the thirteenth winner of the Yale Drama Series prize and the second one chosen by Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Ayad Akhtar.

Genres: Plays, Drama, Theatre

139 pages, Paperback

First published September 22, 2020

Reviews

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5, rounded up.

This was the winner of the Yale Drama Award in 2019 and had a brief run off-Broadway a little over a year ago - and for most of it, it was a solid piece of dramaturgy, with an unusual setting (a self-defense course for women); a cogent, important message; interesting diverse characters - and then the ending just deflated and dragged my rating down probably a full point.

https://web.archive.org/web/202303140...

[Rhian Jade · Rating 5 out of 5]

This evening I had the privilege of watching the graduating class of my former drama school perform this play (ft. Jazz, hey girl !!) and it was sensational. Effortlessly funny while still handling such heavy subject matter with grace and tact. It spoke to so many of my own thoughts and feelings and conversations with my girlfriends, and would go onto spark so many more. The end sequence impacted me in a way I was really not prepared for (interestingly, the 2018 draft I just read had a very different ending which I preferred in a literary sense but I do think the live version, while difficult, achieved its desired effect.) I will recommend this to any and everyone from now on!

[Jazz Sewsanker · Rating 4 out of 5]

The single most important line in this play to any young woman of colour is “are you gonna start straightening your hair again” the amount of damage I’ve done to my body trying to fit into a certain type of beauty is ridiculous. Even now any time I want to feel pretty the first thing I’ll do is straighten my hair. And friends have called me out on it, just like Diana which just made it all worse because now I have to unpack why I feel the need to do it. Just really hit home with that line. Damn. What a read. This isn’t the overall focus of the play but it touches on this subject really nicely, enough to make an impact on those how has experienced this but not enough to derail where the story is heading.

[Liliana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Feeling very cool to have read something that barely exists on Goodreads; I am clearly unlike other girls. Unsure of how to rate scripts (because like…… who knows!) but oh well: I liked this a LOT. Premise and execution were phenomenal, characters well done, the whole shebang. And I share the name of the author, always a plus.

[Sissy · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s a fairly juvenile take on such a universal and deep topic. It feels like it’s a one act that desperately needs its second. It kind of works for an advanced acting classes or scene study, but as a whole, I feel like it would leave the audience confused. I can see how not resolving any relationship goes hand in hand with being a woman in this modern society, but it just feels juvenile.

[Sophie Pitsch · Rating 4 out of 5]

haaaaaard read. hard hard read. forces you to face some truths that mostly likely you don’t wanna face, as well as some truths that aren’t often discussed in media. very well written though, and the end did make me cry a lot. it is honest to the point of discomfort, even for me, and I think art can exist to make you uncomfortable. especially when it is uncomfortable because it showcases real things that real people go through on this earth every day. honestly kind of a devastating play.

[maddie · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was incredible.

[Violet Metta · Rating 3 out of 5]

i did not enjoy this. i really really did not. well written though?

[Roberta Inscho · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished this play with my jaw on the floor — WHOA. In How to Defend Yourself, Liliana Padilla tells a powerful and deeply affecting story centered around a college campus in the aftermath of a sexual assault. After Susannah is hospitalized in critical condition following a rape, a group of her fellow students come together to lead and participate in a self-defense workshop. What unfolds is a raw, layered exploration of trauma, desire, identity, gender expectations, and assimilation.

On the page, this play reads almost like a movement opera. Scenes flow with overlapping dialogue between pairs of characters rehearsing self-defence sequences. There are so many great opportunities for movement, close contact, and intimacy to play a role in the storytelling in this play, which I think was Padilla's goal to highlight, considering the inciting incident of these students coming together was a violent and intimate physical experience.

Each character handles the news of Susannah's plight differently, and you can see how that unfolds in each scene. The tension is so thick in the dialogue! And throughout the dialogue, we really get to experience the psychological development of each character. Plays are obviously meant to be seen and experienced versus read, but I felt like Padilla's dialogue was so strong with the inner life of the characters, as well as the relationships between the characters, that reading it didn't feel like a lackluster experience.

This is a heavy, urgent, and necessary piece of theatre— one that feels especially relevant in today’s cultural moment. I cannot wait to see this on stage one day.

[*ೃnaziba ˘͈ᵕ˘͈ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read this for my intro to American Realism theatre class. I don’t understand the ending… it was too rushed and abrupt, too many loose ends. I feel like I would enjoy watching this play more than I did reading it tbh. Some parts were hilarious and enjoyable to read, they would translate really well irl or on a screen, other parts were very difficult to get through, and not just in the way were you can feel the tension through the words.

SA + Rape are really heavy and poignant topics, and I feel like the author tried to give it the reverence it deserves, but it just fell really flat in the end. I get that the author is writing through the experience of young college aged students but the whole “sending love and light” spiel really made me mad. I did enjoy the fact that we had to read in between the lines sometimes, all seven of the characters had some kind of trauma that was never unpacked. The play just feels very incomplete, like this should have been the first part of something bigger.

[Ted · Rating 3 out of 5]

Playwright and novelist Ayad Akhtar is quoted on the back cover: "Liliana Padilla's play about desire, defense, and the insidious, labyrinthine reach of rape culture is that rare thing: Formally inventive, timely, accessible, and soulful. I can't wait for people to experience it." The reviews here on Goodreads seem to bounce between it being an exceptional play, and it being superficial. My opinion leans toward the latter. But I hesitate to criticize a work about such an important topic. I plan to see the play performed in a week or so, and I suspect that I will find it more compelling that I did from reading it. But my initial reaction is that it is somewhat simplistic. And, also, it feels like the author aimed for a profound ending, but completely missed the mark.

[Reicse O · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 out of 5, really liked the build up and the complicated characters that the playwright created. there’s a REALLY interesting story here, but the ending fell flat for me. feels like there wasn’t really a resolution… like it was incomplete. i finished it thinking “ugh i wish there was more!” i wish we had more time to explore the characters and their established (and blossoming) relationships to each other and themselves. i’m sure seeing it live helps this, but from a reader standpoint it didn’t have the full effect.

[Jasmine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a powerful piece of theatre. The intricate understanding of how SA can effect so many lives and the cacophony of voices screaming for answers throughout this play was heart wrenchingly beautiful. To Nikki who represents the inside out of so many sweet and multifaceted and strong women who it broke my heart to get to know and hear her story. This is a must read.

[Will Farris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am leaning more towards 3.5 stars. I am mainly basing this on the text itself, and not the play up on its feet. I have a feeling if I saw this live it would be one of the best things I have seen. I feel like the physicality is so important that parts of the play are taken away by just reading it.

[Bryce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just enough of that college humor to balance out the solemness of its subject material. There is a reverberating quality to the characters' connections that despite the brevity and pace, can induce a keen reader's -or better yet, a viewer's- interrogation of both themselves and their broader social atmosphere.

[Olivia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent play - combines all my favorite features (by/for young women, brutally honest, explores gender & sexuality, collective imagining). Quick, relatable read. Excited for the opportunity to see it staged!

[Aaron Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is very good. Smarter and much more honest than most dramas about sexual violence. It does feel a bit unfinished—there are quite a few loose ends left dangling—but I really don't think I mind that.

[Lex Joyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

gorgeous dialogue -- a play that doesn't try to have the answers but simply poses questions and explores them

one I really want to see be staged - some of the later more stylised moments will likely feel less rushed

[Nanette · Rating 2 out of 5]

Depressing look at college today where young women view all men as predators.

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great play looking at current issues around sexual assaults and how women are supposed to defend themselves from it. Really travels and explores grey areas which I loved!

[Diana Rendon · Rating 5 out of 5]

obsessed with this play. cannot wait to see it at NYTW in 2023.

[Sophia M · Rating 5 out of 5]

This play makes me feel feral

[Lila · Rating 5 out of 5]

WHAT AN INCREDIBLE PLAY OH MY GOD

[Grace Wagner · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know this all too well and yet I was reading it for the first time

[Octavia]

Yes to so much of this.

[Avery Russey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I want to be in this play. I think it is so important and so relevant and so upsetting.

[Bella Trocino · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25!!

[annberry · Rating 4 out of 5]

didnt change my life or anything but a great read and probably a 5 star watch (so much of it i think needs to be heard and not read)

[Olivia · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of the best pieces of art I’ve read about the nuances of sexuality and desire and sexual violence. Just great

[Mauberley]

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