cover photo by Carol Rosegg
“ROAR is part tender drama
and part searing comedy. The young writer Betty Shamieh has the playwright’s
most essential gift: the passion for talk. Ms Shamieh’s rich, urgent prose will
catch you up, then fling you into a character’s life as if it were your own. In
ROAR, we meet two generations of Palestinian-Americans living in Detroit during
the first Gulf War. Don’t expect the grim worthiness of a `problem play'; expect
unpredictable events, relationships, and humor.”
Margo Jefferson, The New York Times
“The
words of this play first hum, then sing and ultimately roar into your
consciousness and soul.”
Theater Scene
“ROAR
opened Off-Broadway and made an immediate impact. It deals with a family of
outsiders who, like the Younger family in A RAISIN IN THE SUN, are also
struggling with the concept of assimilation—but
this family of uprooted Palestinians sees the world in a considerably different
and far more complex way. Although it deals largely with the Palestinian
experience, ROAR is fundamentally about the American dream.”
Theater Mania
“ROAR is not
at all the lightweight issue-oriented play it first appears, but rather a
layered, family-oriented tragic drama in the tradition of THE GLASS MENAGERIE or
LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT. If Shamieh's not quite ready to stake her claim
as not only one of the best and most important playwrights of her generation but
as a dramatist as significant in her way as Tennessee Williams and Eugene
O'Neill were in theirs, ROAR certainly suggests the day that will happen is not
far off.”
Talkin’ Broadway
“ROAR isn’t just the story of Palestinian-Americans living in Detroit: it’s
an unsentimental look at family life in all its frustrating complexity.”
Associated Press
originally produced by The New Group, New York
2 M, 3 F
I S B N: 0-88145-255-6, $12.95