Customer Reviews

Sharman MacDonald Plays One: When I Was a Girl, I Used to Scream and Shout, When We Were... (Contemporary Classics (Faber & Faber))

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I found this book years ago in London and every person whose hands I have placed it in has returned it to me with a mischevious light in their eyes. Ms Macdonald is truly one of the greatest contemporary playwrights, both for women and for Scotland. Each of these four very different scripts provides a rich dialect and dialogue, embracing Scottish culture and revealing it in its naked honesty. A portrayal of women of every age, from the single mother to the hovering grandma, from the brutally truthful child to the impetuous, rebelling teenager. Each story is humorous and cruel; my heart breaks with understanding as Morag tells her only daughter that she hates her, and loves her in practically the same moment. I cannot conceive of how Ms Macdonald has managed to capture the words which express so perfectly a kind of pain that all women deal with - and I must add here that the men in her plays are just as powerful. These scripts provide a richness of modern Scottis! h life and the women, the families, the people who struggle to survive and discover what "it all" really means. If you have found your way to this review please do yourself a favor and read Sharman. She'll say it like you've never heard it before - think Career Girls or Secrets and Lies (Mike Leigh). If you are an actor you will find her plays to be a terrific fountain of material; if you are a woman, I can bet you won't find many stories that strike closer to the soul.