Daniels Plays: 2: Gut Girls , Beside Herself , Head-rot Holiday , Madness of Esme and Shaz (Methuen World Classics) (Vol 2) [Paperback]

Sarah Daniels (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 5, 1994 | ISBN-10: 0413690407 | ISBN-13: 978-0413690401

Sarah Daniels is "a writer with a natural talent for disturbance"—Observer

Set in the gutting sheds of the slaughterhouse at the Cattle Market in late Victorian Deptford, The Gut Girls shows how the lives of the girls are changed when their work is made illegal - "Regarded as little better than whores by their contemporaries the gut girls are…a boisterous, beer-swilling, strong-minded bunch, handy with a knife both in the gutting shed and outside it, defiantly independent in attitude and scornful of the illusion of male supremacy." Malcolm Hay (Time Out). Beside Herself is the first of three plays in this volume that deal with women and madness - "a dramatic analogue of a contemporary social tragedy which exists on a scale we are only just beginning to comprehend" (Observer); Head-Rot Holiday commissioned by Clean Break theatre company for ex-offenders, portrays the fate of women detained in special hospitals, a euphemism for an institution for the "criminally insane" - "There is a fine, hard humour, as well as compassion, in the way Head-Rot Holdiay examines the contradictions entangling these women's lives"; The Madness of Esmé and Shaz is "A weird and wondrous black comedy." (Spectator)

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Methuen Drama (December 5, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0413690407
• ISBN-13: 978-0413690401
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,802,176 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4.0 out of 5 stars Women's Issues, January 25, 2002

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frumiousb "frumiousb" (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Daniels Plays: 2: Gut Girls , Beside Herself , Head-rot Holiday , Madness of Esme and Shaz (Methuen World Classics) (Vol 2) (Paperback)

Sarah Daniels is a contemporary British playwriter who uses questions of history and madness to explore modern social conditions. The plays are cleanly written and a quick read. _Plays: 2_ contains:

The Gut Girls-- a drama about an upper-class woman's attempt to enlighten the women who worked in the dirtiest job of the meat industry. Set in the Victorian period.

Beside Herself-- The staff members of a Community Group Home confront issues of incest and abuse in various ways.

Head Rot Holiday-- Women in a mental hospital interact with staff and each other. Commentary on the mental health system and the relationship between sane and insane women.

The Madness of Esme and Shaz-- A religious spinster takes in her lesbian niece who's just been released from a hospital for the criminally insane.