Body Awareness
by Annie Baker

Name: Body Awareness
Brand: Annie Baker
SKU: 9780573663109
Rating: 3.82 (494 reviews)

Body Awareness Book Cover — Body Awareness Cover

Highlights

Female

Male

90 minsPresent DayUnit Set/Multiple SettingsContemporary Costumes/Street ClothesComedy

Awards & Recognition

Drama Desk AwardOuter Critics Circle

Nominee: 2009 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play Nominee: 2008 Outer Critics Circle's John Gassner Award

Synopsis

It’s Body Awareness Week on a Vermont college campus and Phyllis, the organizer, and her partner, Joyce, are hosting one of the guest artists in their home: Frank, a photographer famous for his female nude portraits.

Both his presence in the home and his chosen subject instigate tension from the start.

Phyllis is furious at his depictions, but Joyce is actually rather intrigued by the whole thing, even going so far as to contemplate posing for him.

As Joyce and Phyllis bicker, Joyce’s adult son, who may or may not have autism spectrum disorder, struggles to express himself physically – with heartbreaking results.

Press Reviews

"An engaging new comedy by a young playwright with a probing, understated voice... Its quiet rewards steal up on you."
— The New York Times

"Body Awareness is indeed very funny, skewering everything from the professor’s pretensions to the blunt sex talk Frank delivers to Jared... Baker’s dialogue is tart and personable, with just enough unexpected twists in the characterizations to keep you leaning forward... [Baker] has a lovely ability to comically mock types and trends while exposing the raw seams in her characters."
— The Washington Post

"Editor's Pick! “The deepest and richest of the three plays by Annie Baker that make up the Shirley, VT Plays Festival."
— The Boston Globe

"Sexuality's endless capacity to make us miserable is the keynote of Annie Baker's gentle satire, which takes just four actors and 90 minutes to spin an astonishingly complex web of emotions and ideas... Body Awareness is a smart, modest work about ordinary, flawed people, grasping for connection, but none of it feels small, thanks to Baker's sharp ear for the deeply painful - and funny - longings squirming under her characters' dialogue. What a beautiful start to a young playwright's theatrical body of work."
— Time Out New York