The Retreating World
This play is included in the collection:
Play Description
THE RETREATING WORLD concerns an Iraqi bird keeper from Baghdad and his address before the International Pigeon Convention.
Production Info
Cast: 1 total (1 male)Short Drama (about 30 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
- Reviews
- About the Author(s)
- About the Book
- Special Notes
- Productions
Press Quotes
“Real political theater as I understand it: challenging, disorienting, and thought provoking.” —Nehad Selaiha, Al-Ahram Weekly
“Wallace refuses to judge her characters, choosing instead to explore the possibility of humanity in the most inhumane conditions. THE FEVER CHART is the best theatrical production of the year.” —Joseph Fahim, Daily News Egypt
“In Naomi Wallace’s THE RETREATING WORLD, the ghosts are so recent that you feel you might lean forward in your seat and touch their fingertips … THE RETREATING WORLD is the kind of short, stark and simple play that reminds us why we need theatre at a time like this, what the playwright can achieve that the journalist cannot.” —Lyn Gardner, The Guardian
“Extraordinarily powerful, it is a privilege to attend such a theatrically excellent event.” —The Independent
“Absolutely compelling theatre.” —The Evening Standard
“The theatrical event of my week. It brings home the meaning of war, makes it personal, refuses to let it slip into unreality … a taut, beautifully written elegy and it reaches out to us now like a prophecy.” —The Observer
Author(s)
Naomi WallaceNaomi 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 CHART: THREE VISION OF THE MIDDLE EAST, AND I AND SILENCE, THE HARD WEATHER BOATING PARTY, THE LIQUID PLAIN. Her stage adaptation of William Wharton's novel Birdy was produced on the West End in London. In 2009, ONE FLEA SPARE was incorporated in the permanent repertoire of the French National Theater, the Comédie- Francaise. Only two American playwrights have been added to La Comédie's repertoire in 300 years. Films: Lawn Dogs, The War Boys, Flying Blind (co-written with Bruce McLeod). Awards: Susan Smith Blackburn Prize (twice), Joseph Kesselring Prize, Fellowship of Southern Writers Drama Award, Obie Award, and the 2012 Horton Foote Award for most promising new American play. She is also a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts development grant. In 2013, Wallace received the inaugural Windham Campbell prize for drama and in 2015, an Arts and Letters Award in Literature.
Special Notes
If original stage producers credits appear in bold below, all licensees are required to include them in the following form on the title page in all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play and in all advertising in which the full cast appears in size of type not less than ten percent (10%) of the size of the title of the Play:
In addition, the following must appear within all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play:
by special arrangement with Broadway Play Publishing Inc, NYC
www.broadwayplaypub.com
Related Plays
Play Description
BETWEEN THIS BREATH AND YOU takes place after hours in the waiting room of a clinic in West Jerusalem, where a Palestinian father confronts a nurse's aide, a young Israeli woman, about the meaning of the loss of his son and the impact it had on her life.
Production Info
Cast: 3 total (1 female, 2 male)Short Drama (about 30 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$11.95–$15.00Play Description
Three years ago, Sarah Kennedy thought she was hired as a translator for a corporate military prison in Baghdad, only to discover that she would be acting as an interrogator instead, retrieving information from prisoners of war — by any means necessary. Now, Lily Strauss, a disgraced reporter in the waning days of newspaper journalism, must uncover Sarah's story, cutting through webs of corporate lies and government deception until finally faced with the choice between her own journalistic ideals and the devastating consequences of telling the truth. A political thriller, ON THE HEAD OF A PIN is an exploration of who watches the watchers and what happens when they look away.
Production Info
Cast: 9 total (5 female, 4 male)Full Length Drama (about 170 minutes)
Multiple Sets
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95Play Description
A comedy about the Iran-Contra affair.
Production Info
Cast: 8 total (1 female, 7 male)Full Length Comedy (about 100 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95Play Description
A promising Ethiopian soccer star in Israel is courted by an American sports agent. The athlete is involved with another Ethiopian who risks being deported. Meanwhile, there is also a reckless, clandestine operation afoot to airlift one last group of Falasha Jews from Ethiopia to Israel.
Production Info
Cast: 8 total (3 female, 5 male, multiethnic cast)Full Length Drama (about 85 minutes)
Multiple Sets
Contemporary Costumes
$0.00–$15.95Play Description
Two college professors have left their homeland for a country that soon devolves into a war zone. They're accustomed to lives of comfort, but it's hard to get comfortable when you're chained to a radiator. HOSTAGES explores the intricacies of human nature when it's deprived of personal contact and torn from the pleasantries of everyday life.
Production Info
Cast: 3 total (3 male)Full Length Drama (about 80 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95Play Description
An action-adventure about a mission behind enemy lines during the Gulf War.
Production Info
Cast: 6 total (1 female, 5 male)Full Length Drama (about 90 minutes)
Multiple Sets
Contemporary Costumes
$11.95–$15.00Play Description
In October 1983 a truck filled with explosives blew up in a Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 242 soldiers. SEMPER FI explores the aftermath of that terrorist attack on the Marine Lt Colonel who was in charge.
Production Info
Cast: 7 total (2 female, 5 male)Full Length Drama (about 90 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95Play Description
When Fawaz, a young Palestinian-American, travels to Israel and the Occupied West Bank for the wedding of his estranged brother, he finds only Hala, his fiery fiancée, abandoned at the altar. Amidst the rumors and suspicions surrounding his brother’s mysterious disappearance, Fawaz sets out on a dangerous quest through the militarized landscape of Israel and the Occupied Palestinian territories to find his brother at whatever cost. Boldly political and humorously provocative, TWENTY ONE POSITIONS is an odyssey for our time.
Production Info
Cast: 10 total (4 female, 6 male, 1 female child, flexible casting)Full Length Comedy (about 110 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95Play Description
A play about love, sex, ambition, and the Arab American experience, ROAR is the story of a Palestinian American family living in Detroit in the wake of the first Gulf War. Karema and Ahmed Yacoub work long hours in their liquor store while their teenage daughter, Irene, relentlessly pursues a career as a pop star. All hell breaks loose when a notoriously sexy and scandalous relative, Hala, gets thrown out of Kuwait and arrives on the doorstep without a return ticket.
Production Info
Cast: 5 total (3 female, 2 male)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95Play Description
O JERUSALEM centers around an American State Department official who becomes entangled in Middle Eastern politics before and after September 11, 2001. Along the way, the protagonist encounters a Palestinian woman from his past.
Production Info
Cast: 5 total (3 female, 2 male)Full Length Drama (about 110 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95Play Description
A brutal account of the effect of the Iraq war and past wars on soldiers and military families. What is the legacy of war on the home front? How do we best serve our country?
Production Info
Cast: 6 total (4 female, 2 male)Full Length Drama (about 90 minutes)
Multiple Sets
Contemporary Costumes