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CHAD GRACIA |
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Nationality: USA Email: n/a Website: n/a |
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Literary Agent: Fifi Oscard Agency |
Please send me a biography and information about this Playwright
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Plays by Chad Gracia |
Gilgamesh | ||
| 1st Produced: | - - - | - - - | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Wesleyan University Press 2006 | ISBN/ASIN: | 978-0819568243 | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #97819 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Verse play | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 6 | Female | 8 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Written by Chad Gracia and Yusef Komunyakaa. Based on the Sumerian legend | |||||
| Gritty, laconic, well-known poet Komunyakaa (who won a Pulitzer for 1993's Neon Vernacular) teams up with playwright and dramaturge Garcia for a compelling, short, stage-ready adaptation of the Sumerian epic that may be the oldest story in the world. In the play, as in its ancient source, the ill-content King Gilgamesh develops a deep passion for Enkidu, a wild man who grew up among beasts. The king and the wild man fight together against the spectral forest-monster Humbaba; they win, but the resulting curse kills Enkidu, and the distraught king must travel to the ends of the Earth for the magic flower that might revive his friend. Komunyakaa's short lines and taciturn bearing fit the gravity of the warriors' tragedy, and he strikes the right balance between contemporary directness and antique grace. Gilgamesh, once embarked on his quest for the flower, demands of one among its many guardians: "Open the gate/ so I may confront the father of Grief." If Komunyakaa's Sumerians lack the verbal polish and the philosophical ambition of, say, fellow poet Seamus Heaney's Greeks (found in his translation of Sophocles), this is a dramatic work of sinewy vitality, with a real hero who moves and breathes on the stage. (Oct.) | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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