Description
Condition - Very Good
The item shows wear from consistent use, but it remains in good condition and functions properly. Item may arrive with damaged packaging or be repackaged. It may be marked, have identifying markings on it, or have minor cosmetic damage. It may also be missing some parts/accessories or bundled items.
PLAYS: Transitional Object - Three as in Triangle or the Aftertastes of Life
Theater brings us closer to one another. Whether we read a play or see it performed, we connect with characters almost instantly. We see through the masks their problems and empathize with them. Because of the regenerative power of catharsis, we fear and pity characters, and we reflect on their messages, warnings, and advices.
In part, my plays were written as an appendix to my first book, Transacting Sites of the Liminal Bodily Spaces. In part, because I wanted to explore pain, suffering, humiliation, and laughter via language, gestures, kinetics and other theatrical elements. I have been interested in the “passage†that is created by a diagnosis, when a person with full social status becomes a patient with different bodily and emotional routines, some of which very scary and unpredictable. I continue to explore this liminal, dual, if you prefer, status—as person-patient—for it presents uncountable, rich venues for one’s self-discovery. Do we own our bodies, or, being social creatures, are our bodies written and performed primarily by the state? Does an illness itself undermine our identity, or is this a myth that needs to be reevaluated? These are some questions that result from reading my plays. I invite readers to answer them, as well as to explore others.
Post scriptum: As experiment, I ask readers to wear a doctor’s coat for half a day. Do you feel you are a different person with more authority? Do you think you should behave and talk in a neutral manner? Do you believe you have more power? The other half of the day, they should wear the same coat in a reversed fashion, that is, by closing it on the back, like a medical gown. Has anything changed? Do you feel insecure and vulnerable all of a sudden? This exercise is highly theatrical, too. In a split second, they could transform themselves into characters: a doctor and a patient, respectively. As they will discover in my plays, this borderline feeling pervades the tone of my writing.
Catalina Florina Florescu earned her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature
from Purdue University in 2007. She teaches American drama, theory and
writing at Wagner College in Staten Island, New York. Both her books,
Transacting Sites of the Liminal Bodily Spaces (academic/criticism) and
Inventing Me/Exerciţii de retrăit (memoir), have been indexed in the
famous URL www.worldcat.org. The former is part of top rated
universities’ collections, such as Columbia U, Princeton, UCLA, the
Library of Congress, Stanford U, etc. Her new book, Disjointed
Perspectives on Motherhood, is under contract with Lexigton Books, an
imprint of Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Group, and it is slated to
be released in 2014. She is also the recipient of Modern Language
Bibliography fellowship.
Dr. Florescu is highly interested in the human body, its various idioms
of pain and suffering, as well as the intersection between facts and
creativity, science and arts & literature.
