The Elbow Grease Strategy

by Marie Cooper

Based on Brechtian theatre. Jessica lives in a bedsit that she can not stand and can not get out of.
Her grandmother thinks that all Jessica needs to do is clean the place up, work harder, and save some money. Neither of them fully see or appreciate what Jessica is up against.

Based on Brechtian theatre. Jessica lives in a bedsit that she can not stand and can not get out of.
Her grandmother thinks that all Jessica needs to do is clean the place up, work harder, and save some money. Neither of them fully see or appreciate what Jessica is up against.

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The Elbow Grease Strategy

Recommended by

  • Alice Josephs: The Elbow Grease Strategy

    As gas and electricity prices soar, this short, passionate play about Generation Z Jessica struggling to keep a roof over her head, pay bills, get a job and understand her place in the world takes the temperature of our times. Cooper’s bold writing and staging uses rather than is used by Brechtian methodology. A director and designer with a troupe of actors could mine into the layers of this on-the-pulse fable with ‘grandmother’ more representative of a wolfish governmental ‘nudge’ unit replacement in propaganda mode than a loving relative and whose pronouncements are belied by a shivering...

    As gas and electricity prices soar, this short, passionate play about Generation Z Jessica struggling to keep a roof over her head, pay bills, get a job and understand her place in the world takes the temperature of our times. Cooper’s bold writing and staging uses rather than is used by Brechtian methodology. A director and designer with a troupe of actors could mine into the layers of this on-the-pulse fable with ‘grandmother’ more representative of a wolfish governmental ‘nudge’ unit replacement in propaganda mode than a loving relative and whose pronouncements are belied by a shivering reality.

Development History

  • Type Reading, Organization Maddermarket Theatre, Year 2021