Notes on Miss Heimlich Between 1861 and 1865, more than 3 million soldiers fought in the American Civil War, one of the nation’s most violent wars to date. It claimed the lives of an estimated 620,000 soldiers and overwhelmed the nation with an excruciating sense of loss and suffering. Never before had the United States had to face death on such an inconceivable scale. Bodies were destroyed and deformed, all in the country’s backyard, forcing the nation to come to grips with the sudden prevalence of death and dying in whatever ways that it could.
Yale School of Drama presents the Langston Hughes Festival of New Plays
miss heimlich
Civil War drama Miss Heimlich embodies and explodes the conventions of 19th century melodrama, a form that emphasizes grand physical gestures, heightened emotions, and a well-defined moral universe that clearly designates “good” and “evil” in its stock characters. It is the kind of play that points to its own theatricality. Yet in this very act, it illuminates certain truths about our existence. The play is an intersection of several different realities: 19th century melodrama, a series of image-based scenes called “wounds,” and a contemporary “speaker.” The ruptures and fusions of these realities create a theatrical and imaginative space that takes what seems familiar and transforms it into something foreign. And the creation of this new world encourages us to consider the strangeness of what we think we know, allowing for an encounter with the beauty and terror of our new shifting perspectives. In addition to this, Miss Heimlich contemplates wounds, both national and personal. It asks us to consider how long it takes wounds to heal, how we can confront the losses that we encounter in life, and how we can come together and endure the world as the universal thump is passed around from person to person. Miss Heimlich asks all of this and more in its exploration of the familiar and the foreign and its riffs in on everything in between.
by jake jeppson directed by Kara-Lynn Vaeni
— DELILAH DYLAN DOMINGUEZ, PRODUCTION DRAMATURG
2010–11 season
The Studio Series productions are designed to be learning experiences that complement classroom work, providing a medium for students at Yale School of Drama to combine their individual talents and energies toward the staging of collaboratively created works. Your attendance meaningfully completes that process.
drama.yale.edu
Thursday, november 4, 4PM Friday, november 5, 4PM and 8PM Saturday, november 6, 4PM ISEMAN THEATER 1156 CHAPEL STREET