THE RUSHES OF TULSA: and Other Plays

by Sidney Goldfarb

These four plays by Sidney Goldfarb are politically astute and savagely funny, though remarkably compassionate, like a stew cooked up by the Marx Brothers, Groucho and Karl, after years of Zen Meditation. Pursued by the forces of murder and exploitation, ordinary people struggle just to stay alive. The path to liberation is through the human body, at once the arena of conflict and the locus of healing in a culture torn by menace and mayhem. This is a Theater of Incarnation. It is also a Theater of Celebration. Startling invention in language and structure turn palpable horrors into unexpected forms of transcendence. Goldfarb ranks among the indispensable experimental playwrights of his generation.

320 pages, Paperback

First published September 5, 2000

Reviews

[Michael Flatt · Rating 5 out of 5]

These plays belong alongside those of Pirandello, Genet and Maria Irene Fornes, perhaps even Beckett. They're gritty and surreal, hilarious and frightening; at times, especially in the title play, even psychedellic. The plays here deal seriously with a broad scope of issues, including heritage, violence, class, religion, gender and parenthood. It makes sense to liken Goldfarb's work to that of a "Sam Shepard on acid," as Alissa Soloman did in a review for The Village Voice, but that risks reducing the dreamlike quality of his imagery and use of the stage to mere hallucination. I think of Goldfarb more as a Southwestern Whitman, whose notions of populism in the 20th Century America appropriately take into account how our dreams of America have morphed since Whitman studied the faces in Brooklyn.