plays plays plays

More than 60 international plays were presented over the week with ten readings a day so it was difficult to choose. Here's a very small sample: Salute the Man by Jeannie Haughton of Melbourne, takes place during the early settlement of Austrailia. The alleged disappearance of a white woman causes the settlers to murder many aboriginals in their search for the missing woman. Finally found, "she" is discovered to be the prow of a ship that has crashed on the rocks! Who Will Sing For Lena? by Janice Liddel of the US is about the first woman executed for murder, an African American woman who has killed her abuser in self-defense terrifically acted by Vanisa Adams Haris, also of US. Another play was about a white woman scape-goated in Rwanda. Many plays were about race and ethnicity. There was a play about Indian prostitutes and transvestites written and acted by the prostitutes themselves- they have formed their own theater company!

Unlike most of the internationals, I stayed in a guest house on campus and across the hall from me occupying thee same size room that I had to myself, were 10 members of a traditional folk group from Maharashtra who were there to perform the ten incarnations of Krishna-it's hard for me to keep all the Indian gods straight but I think Krishna is also Shiva.