Wives
by Jaclyn Backhaus

Name: Wives
Brand: Jaclyn Backhaus
SKU: 9780822241638
Rating: 3.35 (17 reviews)

Off-Broadway

Highlights

Female

Male

90 mins Present Day Role(s) for Asian Actor(s) Unit Set/Multiple Settings Period Costumes Comedy

Synopsis

From the brawny castles of 16th-century France, to the rugged plains of 1960s Idaho, to the strapping palaces of 1920s India, all hail the remarkable stories of the Great Men – as told by their whiny, witchy, vapid, vengeful, jealous wives.

In this kaleidoscopic, time-hopping, comic ensemble piece, Jaclyn Backhaus pushes past patriarchal cliché to reach an ecstatic breakthrough, untethering stories and history – and even language itself – from the visions made by men.

A play about women taking control of their narratives with the help of each other, their feelings and a giant fish.

Press Reviews

"Jaclyn Backhaus’s Wives, a swift and playful feminist manifesto, tells us flat-out that it’s looking to mess with narrative norms… It aims to challenge our assumptions about historical truth and about what makes a ‘well made’ drama, digging down to the roots of individuals, social structures, and theatrical structures and attempting, sometimes violently, to purge the toxins it finds there… a funny, ferocious, long overdue celebration.” – New York Magazine“It’s hard to resist the angry, happy spectacle that Ms. Backhaus [has] made… Wives is a gleeful work of historical subversion.” – The New York Times“[A] frantically funny and freestyle commentary on how patriarchal history pigeonholes the women that clichés tell us were behind great men… Wives not only packs a lot of laughs, but a good deal of spirit as well."
— BroadwayWorld

Characters

Character	Gender	Age	Description
Wife 2 plays COOK, MARY, MR. PATTERSON, WITCH	male	—	plays COOK, MARY, MR. PATTERSON, WITCH
Wife 3 plays DIANE, MARTHA, MAHARANI, SWARN/ME	—	—	plays DIANE, MARTHA, MAHARANI, SWARN/ME
Man plays HENRI, BIG ERN, MAHARAJA, SWARN* Wife 1, Wife 3, and Man should be South Asian.	female	—	plays HENRI, BIG ERN, MAHARAJA, SWARN* Wife 1, Wife 3, and Man should be South Asian.
Wife 1 plays QUEEN, HADLEY, ROOP RAI, SWARN	female	—	plays QUEEN, HADLEY, ROOP RAI, SWARN