The Tamesis
Orientation in the first stage all my sonsArthur Miller established the protagonist – the affable, respected factory owner Joe Keller – as a “man among men” in his 1947 drama. You can imagine the Pulitzer Prize winner throwing away his pipe as he wrote this letter, and many people nodding in approval as they read it: Typical American, hardcore guy, you know?
While writer Julia May Jonas wasn’t a fan of the lengthy prologue Miller used to set the scene, that description led her to create a riff on Miller’s classic that cheekily titled the book. woman among women.
What would it look like, Jonas wondered, for women to be seen as the backbone of society? Her Answers is currently playing at Lincoln Center Theater and will premiere at the Starr Theater in Bushwick in 2024 to critical acclaim.
Miss This is the first of five series reimagining classic American landmarks, developed in part with director Sarah Cameron Hughes. This series is collectively known as All true american storiesalso solved the problem of Eugene O’Neill The long journey from day to nightSam Shepard’s true westDavid Mamet American buffaloand Edward Albee’s zoo story. “Who cares if you make one?” Jonas deadpanned. “But if you do it five times, you’re trying to really discover something.”
As Hughes explains, the purpose of the project is to add to the canon—not to delete or translate. Jonas created these plays intuitively. They were the first five that came to her mind, and her reaction was a combination of what first came to mind when she thought of them and what she was already interested in in art (as well as a bit of irreverence). her opinion a long day’s journeyFor example, We used to wear hats and were excitedis less about a family’s evenings at home and more about a century’s worth of generations living in the same house.
Still, the space these source dramas occupy is unavoidable. Jonas recalls browsing Powell’s, a large independent bookstore in Portland, Oregon, and noticing that its drama section contained almost exclusively works by these writers. It played out much the same way in actual theaters: As Hughes and Jonas prepared to launch the cycle at Starr in 2020 (before the pandemic derailed their plans), the inspiration for each entry got a major revival in New York within a year.
But enough about the past. Joe Keller has come and gone, and Jonas brings us Cleo, a 60-something therapist who runs a women’s health center in Northampton, Massachusetts. While retaining Miller’s central themes of truth and personal responsibility—can the pillars of community become pillars of salt? — a drama that moves from a postwar story about selling defective airplane parts to an exploration of caregiving dynamics (self and public) between women. Cleo’s daughter Jo was involved in an altercation that landed her in jail. As the show progresses, details emerge about the factors that may have contributed to Joe’s aggression, echoing themes of nature versus nurture, as well as intersections with mental illness, drugs, and agency.
Actor Hannah Heller and writer Julia May Jonas rehearse ” A woman among women.Photo: Laurel Hinton/Courtesy of Lincoln Center Theater
