[NEohioPAL] Review of "Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again." at Dobama Theatre

[Bob Abelman]

Dobama’s anarchic ‘Revolt’ a reminder that theater can and should shock



Bob Abelman

Cleveland Jewish News, The News Herald, The Morning Journal



Well-behaved women seldom make history.



This saying, coined in 1976 in an obscure scholarly article by Harvard history professor Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, became one of modern feminism's most popular slogans and the stuff of t-shirts, coffee mugs and protest posters.



It also serves as the motivation and mantra for “Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again,” Alice Birch’s 80-minute political, profane and highly theatrical manifesto for the #MeToo era, currently on stage at Dobama Theatre.  The play received its world premiere at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon in 2014 and its off-Broadway premiere at the Soho Rep in 2016.  



The work is a series of overlapping, irreverent and increasingly chaotic provocations about how words – which are grounded in our culture’s historical misogyny and patriarchy – serve to define, defend or diffuse the power held by men and women.  The play’s vignettes underscore the reality that women are more often victimized than validated through language, which impacts their self-perception, aspirations and relationships.  And it is time for a change.



For more of this article, go to www.clevelandjewishnews.com/columnists/bob_abelman/
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