Susan Yankowitz

The monologue (about 25 minutes) is based on the extraordinary experience of Mukhtar Mai, a young peasant who was gang-raped in retribution for an alleged 'honor' crime committed by her little brother and became the first woman in Pakistan to bring her rapists to justice. With her settlement money, she built a school for girls in her village so that they would know their rights as citizens and never have to endure the humiliation of signing their names with their thumbprints.

This is a true ensemble piece, a comedy with a dark undertow that utilizes a flexible cast (age, gender, race, number of performers), a modular set, and unusual opportunities for creative collaboration. Actors play many roles, transforming character from one scene to the next. Without a conventional plot, it deals with - what else? - boxes of every sort: physical, psychological and emotional, imposed, chosen, comfortable, constricting, personal, political, moral..

Through a bizarrely circuitous route, the play was produced by a terrific ensemble company, Tiyatro 1112 Garaj in Ankara, Turkey, and won the 2012 prize for best ensemble play - see video clip below.

In alternating scenes of hyper-realism and surrealism, a successful corporate lawyer attempts to recover his dimming idealism by defending a young homeless man accused of murdering a prostitute. As he becomes gradually more obsessed with the case, the boundaries between his life and that of his client become blurred and he finds himself trapped between conflicting ideas of moral and legal justice, and of personal and political responsibility. There are no simple solutions for anyone in the world of this play. One chord is sounded and another vibrates. The sexual hatred and confusion at the core of the violent acts spill over into the lawyer's domestic life, affecting not only him but his wife and daughter, with startling results for all.

.A successful corporate lawyer attempts to recover his dimming idealism by defending a young homeless man accused of murdering a prostitute. As he becomes gradually more obsessed with the case, the boundaries between his life and that of his client become blurred and he finds himself trapped between conflicting ideas of moral and legal justice, and of personal and political responsibility. There are no simple solutions for anyone in the world of this play. One chord is sounded and another vibrates. The sexual hatred and confusion at the core of the violent acts spill over into the lawyer's domestic life, affecting not only him but his wife and daughter, with startling results for all.