FRONT LINES: Book of Plays Includes 'Words of Choice'

The New Press has just released Front Lines: Political Plays by American Women, edited by Alexis Greene and Shirley Lauro.

'Words of Choice' -- in its original version -- is among the seven contemporary plays on "hot-button issues" in this impressive 378 page volume.

The New Press writes:

Front Lines is a pathbreaking collection of the most important, critically acclaimed plays written by the country’s leading con-temporary female playwrights. Including seven full scripts and accompanying materials, Front Lines provides both major ex-amples of the playwright’s craft and an essential introduction to the politically inspired work of female drama-tists of the twenty-first century.

In addition to Words of Choice, other plays in the volume are The Exonerated by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen, Elliot, A Soldier's Fugue by Quiara Alegria Hudes, Clarence Darrow's Last Trial by Shirley Lauro, Mrs. Packard by Emily Mann, No Child... by Nilaja Sun and Hot 'n' Throbbing by Paula Vogel.

In the preface, Shirley Lauro writes: Ever since this country came into being, women have waged battles for rights in the pages of their plays, and on the stages where those plays were performed.

Of the book, The Library Journal wrote:

Plays tell stories, and the best ones stay with us. Compiled by theater critic Greene (Women Who Write Plays) and playwright Lauro (Open Admissions), the stories in this collection of critically acclaimed works by seven leading female playwrights address some of the most contentious of contemporary issues, and they will stick in readers' minds for a long time. Cindy Cooper's Words of Choice looks at the
issue of reproductive choice in first-person accounts, poems, and satire. In Elliot, A Soldier's Fugue, Quiara Alegría Hudes deftly interweaves the tales of three gener-ations of Latino men who served in Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq. The Exonerated, by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen, is based on interviews with men and women on death row for crimes they did not commit. Also included are plays by Paula Vogel, Emily Mann, Lauro, and Nilaja Sun. Recommended for all academic and public drama collections.

In the preface, Shirley Lauro writes: Ever since this country came into being, women have waged battles for rights in the pages of their plays, and on the stages where those plays were performed.

Writing in the introduction, Alexis Greene describes Words of Choice:

Words of Choice, a compilation of first-person accounts, satiric sketches, and poems, illuminates the many angles from which Americans approach the issues of reproductive choice, especially the choice of whether or not to have an abortion. Among other things, the play is intended as a warning about the consequences of reversing the 1973 Supreme Court decision in the case of Roe v. Wade, which made abortion legal in the United States. A father describes how his daughter was assaulted and raped one Fourth-of-July evening, as she walked home through Washington, D.C. [originally from a book of interviews by Angela Bonavoglia.] There is an excerpt from entertainer Kathy Najimy's stand-up comedy show Parallel Lives and a sprightly riff about an imaginary "morning-after burrito" from Taco Bell [originally from The Onion.] There is also nurse Emily Lyons's account of being blown nearly apart by a bomb, which antiabortionist Eric Rudolph exploded at a Birmingham, Alabama, women's clinic in 1998. "I've been to war," Lyons says. "I've gone to hell, and I've come back."

Greene begins her comments by saying, "Playwrights have a responsibility to address the social and political issues of their time," and concludes with noting that the underlying political issue of all of the plays in the volume is the drive to preserve an individual's freedom."

Posted by Cindy Cooper

pictured above: cover, Front Lines: Political Plays by American Women

Visual Artist Heather Ault Has Designs on Birth Control

Visual artist Heather Ault has made choice the center of her work in a way that few others do. Her particular area of interest has been visualizing the history of contraception in a series of digital prints called Ancient Choices, subtitled at one gallery show as "remembering the reproductive histories of our ancestors."

Ault writes that she is building "a body of work that focuses on reproductive health history, using research methods and new media technologies." Specifically, Ault is creating clean and sharp modern posters the illuminate some aspect of birth control, as used throughout the centuries.

Her prints are turned into 16" x 24" posters, usually with a solid color background, a drawing and text. One poster shows ancient Egyptian "spermicidal cervical plugs" ("Crocodile Dung")l Another on a bright yellow (see picture) illustrates a critical a time period in which the birth control pill had been released on the market, but was available only to married women in some states -- finally a ruling by the U.S. Surpeme Court in the case of Eisenstadt v. Baird held that states could not make it illegal to provide the Pill to unmarried adults. Other posters show menstrual extraction, the sponge or a historical advertisement for menstrual pills.

Of Ault's work, one reviewer at the Detroit Metro Times wrote: "Ault's prints are informative yet subversive. The graphics and layout have the feel of vintage advertising posters; they grab your attention. The difference is Ault's reaching for your consciousness instead of your wallet."

A native Californian, Ault has been working for the past couple of years at the University of Illinois, Champagne-Urbana. Previously, she mounted another "choice" show in Eureka, CA of flying red underwear on a clothesline. As pictured, the flaming red slips and bras create a brilliant and bright contrast in the outdoor setting, and the idea seems ripe for the perfect theater set.

Ault's posters are available for sale, as well. At $100, they're a bargain -- guaranteed to add bright and relevant imagery to waiting rooms, clinics, women's studies departments, offices of all sorts and homes. They're attractive and the special feature is that they're great conversation starters.

Posted by Cindy Cooper

pictured above: Heather Ault poster, copyr., from her website, http://www.ancientchoices.com/

Knitting Attention: Condom Amulets Get It

"Through the ages, amulets--often small pouches like the ones I knit--have been used to protect the wearer from evil in the universe," writes Naomi Dagen Bloom, a blogger and knitter who describes her interest in the little pouches and how the idea behind her truly inventive project, "Knit a Condom Amulet."

Bloom's project, an amazing amalgamation of craft, art and activism, is one of the more creative entries in the social justice realm. Bloom encourages people to knit pouches that can hold a condom and that people can wear around their necks as an accessory. Bloom began the project as a response to HIV-AIDS, especially among mature women. In 2005, she decided to organize a public forum on HIV-AIDS and older women in New York. "While planning for the meeting and knitting as usual, the idea of Condom Amulets came to me," she wrote on one of her two blogs, a little red hen (peace, politics, yarnlife after 60). "Could be a decorative way to start a conversation, 'What’s that you’re wearing?' 'A new public health idea—a condom amulet!'''

And then Bloom let the idea knit itself together. Now she has a mini-movement. On the Condom Amulet site, people post knitting patterns for designs they've created like the bra and breast amulets by Lisa Daehlin. There is a page with special knit techniques for the amulets, and another with condom sizes and pictures of packets.

But this is not just a knitting site, it's a consciousness-raising resource. Bloom and friends, like good activists, offer to post people's amulets, but only after they've demonstrated some outreach and education of their own, such as knitters posting the amulet and information about HIV-AIDS on their own blogs, making a pamphlet, distributing HIV-AIDS educational materials.

While Bloom's special interest is in drawing attention to safe sex and HIV-AIDS, the condom amulet need not stop there -- contraception, emergency contraception, condoms for pregnancy prevention can all get take this as a pattern for thought-provoking -- and useful! -- accessorization. So, please, let's have the contraception amulet next! It's a brilliant concept. Thanks, Naomi and friends.

Posted by Cindy Cooper

pictured above, a web button from the Condom Amulet site