Venus

Title: Venus
Author: Parks, Suzan-Lori
Price: $19.95

VENUS
by Suzan-Lori Parks

8M, 4W (flexible casting)

In 1810, The Venus Hottentot (as she is dubbed) - a young black woman with an enormous posterior - is lured away from her menial job in South Africa to tour the world and make lots of money. Once in England, however, she is sold to a freak show, and becomes a star. She shows off her attribute, bringing in crowds and raking in money for the side show owners. Quickly becoming adept at displaying herself and understanding what the public wants from her as a freak, she leaves the circus and tries without success to go out on her own. Eventually she is represented by a white doctor who is more than fascinated with her. He falls in love and keeps her as his mistress until he is in danger of losing his medical reputation and social standing. Venus, who journeyed to Europe with high hopes, at the end of her short life, was dissected by the man she loved.

\"VENUS ... is a formidable experience: a gnarly but brilliant meditation on the ambiguity of race, history, the colonized imagination, sexuality, and theatrical storytelling itself.\" - The New Yorker

\"The true story of a 19th-century Hottentot woman shipped form Africa to England and displayed as a freak was turned into a chilly but gripping play by Suzan-Lori Parks.\" - Time Magazine

\"Suzan-Lori Parks is ... one of the most important dramatists America has ever produced. VENUS addresses a number of subjects, including race, gender, science, love, slavery, colonialism, art, pleasure and death. It tells a tragic story discursively, digressively, elliptically, mockingly, shockingly, heartbreakingly. \" - Civilization Magazine

Publisher: Dramatists Play Service
Publication date: 01/12/1998
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9780822215677
Publishing status: Last copy archived