Marsha Norman Summary

Marsha Norman's first published essay, "Why Do Good Men Suffer"" (1964), written while she was in high school, was awarded first place in a local writing contest and subsequently published in the Kent... Read more

In the following conversation, which was held on 9 July 1987 at Norman's home in New York City, Norman discusses her approach to playwriting. [Savran]: What got you interested in theatre? An... Read more

In the following review, Weales focuses on the ways in which Jessie and her mother are "caught in a social and psychological web that gives them little room to maneuver. " Marsha Norm... Read more

In the essay below, Spencer examines issues related to "feminine identity and female autonomy" in Getting Out, The Laundromat, and 'night, Mother. In the prologue to the The Fa... Read more

Here, reviewing Getting Out after its return to New York, Simon offers a detailed and highly laudatory examination of the play. Marsha Norman's Getting Out is an astonishing first play, espe... Read more

In the review below, Raidy focuses on the performances of Pamela Reed and Susan Kingsley as Arlie-Arlene, . Marsha Norman's starkly real first play, Getting Out, first presented in New York ... Read more

In the following favorable review, Weales describes Getting Out as "an effective theater piece " and Norman as "an impressive addition to the list of good young American playwrigh... Read more

In the following essay, Coen posits that Norman's body of work characterizes her as a feminist playwright whose dramas typically portray women struggling to gain control of their lives. Mars... Read more

In the following essay, Hinson draws on Freudian psychoanalytic theory to argue that the characters in Traveler in the Dark are portrayed with remarkable depth and psychological realism. Marsha Nor... Read more

In the following review, Isherwood asserts that a December 1999 production of Trudy Blue does not live up to the potential of the play's dramatic premise. Marsha Norman takes an alternately ... Read more

In the following essay, Burke examines the influence of playwright Lillian Hellman on Norman's body of work. In October 1974, Israel Horowitz told of a conversation with Samuel Beckett durin... Read more

In the following essay, Forte asserts that Norman's use of theatrical realism in 'night, Mother ultimately perpetuates dominant patriarchal ideology, despite its surface-level treatment ... Read more

In the following essay, Kane offers a critical reading of several of Norman's plays, drawing focus to Norman's recurrent themes of mother-daughter conflict, the struggle for personal aut... Read more

In the following essay, Wattenberg asserts that, through Norman's reimagining of traditional American initiation rites, The Holdup offers a new feminist perspective on the myth of the American ... Read more

Critical Essay by John Simon [Getting Out] is a spiny, realistic play about not exactly pre-possessing people, but it is written with such a brisk, fresh, penetrating touch that sordid, brooding thin... Read more

Critical Essay by Gerald Weales Marsha Norman is not the ordinary beginning playwright. Most talented neophytes display either a passionate concern about their subjects or an imaginative flair for th... Read more