Becky Nurse of Salem
15 Aug 2024Size: 215mm x 136mm£22.99
Becky Nurse of Salem
Paperback £22.99
A wry, innovative reckoning with the legacy of the Salem witch trials, from one of America's foremost playwrights.
Becky Nurse is an outspoken, sharp-witted tour guide at the Salem Museum of Witchcraft. She's just trying to get by in post-Obama America. She's also the descendant of Rebecca Nurse, who was infamously executed for witchcraft in 1692 - but things have changed for women since then… haven't they?
After losing her job for calling out The Crucible in front of schoolkids, Becky visits a local witch for help. One spell leads to another, and then everything really goes off the rails.
Sarah Ruhl's Becky Nurse of Salem is a darkly comic play about a woman coming to terms with her family's legacy and finding her voice in the 'lock her up' era. It was first staged at Lincoln Center Theater, New York, in 2022.
'Witty, sharp and irreverent!'
The Daily Beast'How could one possibly reflect on both the Salem witch trials and our ongoing opioid crisis and end up with a comedy that's ultimately as heartwarming as it is wacky? Leave it to Sarah Ruhl, whose plays have pondered the odd twists and outsize emotions that shape everyday life with both probing intelligence and whimsy, often through a patently feminist lens… Becky Nurse of Salem makes her plight, and those of so many women like her, as authentic as it is illuminating'
New York Sun'A fun, smart play'
New Yorker'A wildly ambitious denunciation of The Crucible, with its sexualization of women and girls, Becky Nurse of Salem calls out the way women are taken to task for the ills of the world. At turns bracing and beguiling… Ruhl's shimmering insights give this new work some truly bewitching moments'
Mercury News15 Aug 2024Size: 215mm x 136mm£22.99
