Stoning Mary

by debbie tucker green

Mysterious while compelling, bewildering while intoxicating, Stoning Mary is a mix of Caryl Churchill, Sarah Kane, and Edward Bond. Yet Debbie Tucker Green has a voice all her own, one that mixes poetic rhythms with vernacular phrases, rap-song repetitions with complex psychology. In 2004, she won the Olivier Award for Most Promising Newcomer.

Genres: Plays, Theatre, Drama, Read For School

73 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2005

Reviews

[Eilidh Fyfe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whilst being slightly difficult to read and follow, the dialogue is rich and interesting and I would love to see it performed.
I did not expect some of the circumstances to be so literal? Perhaps the dystopian, war-torn aspect only comes as a surprise to an individual in the first world, as opposed to the realism of the third world.

[lauren · Rating 2 out of 5]

"you're like that you are."

[Meg McCarthy · Rating 2 out of 5]

oh?

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

*4.25*

[Rhiannon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Having worked on Blasted earlier this year, in some ways I can see why people have compared the two, but I found Blasted a lot more easier to understand than stoning mary.

[Joe Clegg Prada · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tougher to grasp than other plays I’ve read. Mainly because I’ve only had half of the story. How this is staged is the other half. And sadly I’ve yet to come across a production of it.

The concept is a very interesting one, that needs to be seen and heard on a stage to fully land.

The language is as dynamic and alive as any other debbie tucker green piece though. And the kind of broken speech that truly is dialogue, not just writing. Even if some of the repetitiveness of it becomes a bit tiresome, at least when read and not watched on stage.

[SureDetroit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fuck the dad.

[Eleanor · Rating 4 out of 5]

going to ned 3-5 business days and a couple of lectures to process this one.

[Beth · Rating 1 out of 5]

hard to read, hard to follow, hard subject

[Sarah Allen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This would be a much better play to see live. And upon first reading I found it a bit confusing, but I think it will definitely increase in quality upon further reads and outside research, with a lot of important things to say about race, nation, family, trauma.

[Elle Read · Rating 3 out of 5]

This play sends such a good message but is quite challenging to read. Probably more enjoyable as a performance. Links to Blasted by Kane are continuously relevant

[Pili · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just people yelling at each other

[Caspar "moved to storygraph" Bryant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reread today having also watched dtg's film Second Coming and the play kind of slaps I enjoy

[Anelisa Armijo Montoya · Rating 3 out of 5]

whew, this was challenging. i read this in an advanced drama class in college, and it was tricky then too.

reading it straight through is almost impossible, and attempting it is painful. BUT, when i am able to sit with it and read it aloud, i can dig in a bit more. as it is an absurdist play, it is DEFINITELY meant to be watched and listened to, rather than read.

when we dove into this piece in the aforementioned class, we took specific scenes and assigned lines collaboratively, so the way it ended up in performance did not always match with the text (and i appreciated the freedom to do so). that process was helpful in figuring out what was actually being said, and what needed to happen in the scene to meet character objectives.

staging this piece was also so fun, and something i’d love to take a crack at again. so much action is missed just reading this. imagine someone throwing a chair?? or tucking someone else’s hair tenderly behind their ear? imagine a kiss somewhere?? idk where it would be but i bet it could happen somewhere!!

anyways, i love theatre and i wanna do it more

(3.75)

[elestanquequehabla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Al igual que otras obras que he leído de tucker green, se lee inevitable y vertiginosamente rápido. Tanto por las maniobras lingüísticas y rítmicas como por la fuerza resonante de los personajes, esta obra me bombardeó. Pero, al igual que con mi primera lectura de Anne Carson, no fui digno de resistir tal bombardeo, y por eso no le pongo el máximo, como castigo a mí mismo.

Desgarrador es poco para describir este tipo de obras, donde los discursos abren heridas que uno ni siquiera tenía muy presentes. Porque en tucker green el lenguaje definitivamente es un arma, y porque la crítica es una necesidad en lo que los personajes de la dramaturga dicen, leer (y me imagino también que ver montada) este tipo de obras solo te remecen. Una lectura que pesa, que te lleva a tomar distintos malabareos de la realidad social, para luego dirigir una última bofetada cuando demuestra que estos mismos malabareos no están para nada desligados el uno del otro. Solo te hace querer leer más, no solo de la dramaturga misma, sino de lo que hablan sus personajes.

[Miranda · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don’t think I am the target audience for this, and if it wasn’t for a class, I would have never spent my time reading this.

Stoning Mary by Debbie Tucker Green is a modern play with around four timelines and covers topics such as relationship strife, AIDS(?), and externalized egos. Simply put, I hated this. The audience is just dropped into the action (or really lack thereof) without any explanation or grounding, leaving me confused (in a bad way) for almost the entirety of this work. It is just kind of miserable and everyone is fighting all of the time. I don’t understand the point of this. This felt like a younger sibling of Samuel Beckett and Gertrude Stein, and I feel like I’ve made my opinions on their works very well known.

[Misbah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting, intentionally confusing, something clearly meant to be watched rather than read to be able to follow the plot. Dealing with ideas such as morality and death, who should be mourned and how, and punishments surrounding murder. I am currently between giving it 3* or 4* - 4* simply because I’m sure watching it would be far less confusing than reading, which is not the play’s fault.

[Emma Tidser · Rating 3 out of 5]

I only read this script and that's what I'm judging this off of. It clearly is written as the outlines of something to be visually performed which made the experience of trying to sight read the script a struggle and half. But I feel as though if I ever got the chance to watch a production of this script I would enjoy it.

[Fraser Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's hard to judge and a rating seems pointless for play scripts as I firmly believe you need to see a play performed. I gave a rating anyway. It has some really interesting stuff but ultimately falls a bit flat in paper. I would love to see it performed I think it would become clearer.

[Mahaley Wise · Rating 4 out of 5]

mysterious and compelling. it can fit into so many periods and genres. you can read so much into it or little. it is a text completely guided by your thoughts. i have never read anything like it and probably never will

[Celia Lapeña · Rating 1 out of 5]

No me he enterado de nada…

[Dafne Aestas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think probably misses the point if you read it instead of actually WATCH it performed. Insteresting themes and use of language though.

[Elle Reads Books Like · Rating 2 out of 5]

University reading

[charlotte · Rating 3 out of 5]

this was at the same time very conceptually straight forward, but also i have no clue what for.

[Harry Dichmont · Rating 3 out of 5]

Feel like this needs to be seen live rather than read

[Eva Hilzenrath · Rating 2 out of 5]

reading this felt like a stoning

[Bailey Tolentino · Rating 4 out of 5]

invigorating. you feel so involved in the arguments. this definitely reads better on stage than on paper, but yeah! i was pleasantly surprised

[Amelia · Rating 4 out of 5]

ouch.

[Lidia González · Rating 1 out of 5]

0 sentido

[Diana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m totally stealing the ego idea