Description:
Staging Violence Against Women and Girls brings together three contemporary plays that denounce gendered violence, along with interviews with their creators and the practitioners who have staged them in different national contexts.
Little Stitches (London, 2014): consisting of four short pieces by Isley Lynn, Raúl Quirós Molina, Bahar Brunton and Karis E. Halsall, this play presents Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) from the points of view of by-standers, anti-FGM/C activists, health professionals, women who perpetuatethe practice and, finally, survivors. 'Kubra' (Sydney, 2016): written by Dacia Maraini, this short play features a young woman who was subjected to FGM/C as a child and now, years later, brings her case to court in a search for justice. A Trial for Rape (Rome, 2018): adapted for theatre by Renato Chiocca from the international award-winning 1979 documentary of the same name, this play reveals how judicial procedures and attitudes toward sexual violence tend to turn rape survivors from accusers into accused. In their interviews, the writers, directors and producers discuss their conception and production of the works collected in Staging Violence Against Women and Girls. The plays and their creators highlight the urgency of raising awareness of these forms of violence and giving voice to survivors.
Brief description: Raúl Quirós Molina has an MA in Creative Writing from City, University of London. His plays include The Dinner, produced at the Vault Festival (London 2015), and El pan y la sal (Bread and Salt) at the Teatro Español (Madrid 2018), in addition to Where Do I Start? He was a finalist for the Nadal Novel Prize in 2018 and was awarded the Felipe Trigo Novel Prize in 2019 for Los caballos inocentes (The Innocent Horses). He currently lives and works in Barcelona.
Review Quotes:
"[Staging Violence Against Women and Girls] illustrates the journey of artists with how they can raise their communities' awareness around-and denounce-systemic and culturally accepted violence with humanity and humility, embracing complexity in communicating rather than perpetuating uninformed condemnation." --Theatre Topics
"This book's focus on the power of theatre to generate meaningful discourse could not have come at a more poignant time ... [V]aluable for political and/or activism-minded individuals who are interested in the tangible intersection of the arts and cultural, social and political change." --Australasian Drama Studies