A new collection from one of America's leading avant-garde playwrights: THE DIFFICULTY OF CROSSING A FIELD: Nine New Plays by Mac Wellman, with a foreward by Helen Shaw is now available from the University of Minnesota Press.
Known for his verbal invention and radical experimentation, Mac Wellman is one of America's most original dramatists. In this new book, Wellman brings together nine recent plays. With their feisty heroines, crisp dialogue, and noir influences, the works in The Difficulty of Crossing a Field reveal a playwright at the peak of his powers, and the collection concludes with Speculations, Wellman's bold theatrical vision presented as lyrical prose.
"Mac Wellman is as blessedly hard to locate in his plays as he is blessedly easy to find in his life. In life, he is the reliably masterful and genial teacher of playwriting, in lobbies, coffee shops, and at Brooklyn College. In his plays, he lies lower and is more likely to let the secret genius of language scream for itself. But, if you squint, you can see that he's there in the language, too. We are there, too. We are called for. 'Nature needs people,' Wellman tells us in Infrared, 'for what no angel can perform.' Just try to find a more dignified justification for the species."-
Will Eno
For more information, including the table of contents, visit the book's webpage:
http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/W/wellman_difficulty.html
