Necessary Targets: A Story of Women and War

by Eve Ensler

Paperback, 2001

Status

Available

Publication

Villard (2001), Edition: 1, 122 pages

Description

In her first new work since The Vagina Monologues, her Obie Award-winning smash hit, Eve Ensler tells the story of two American women, a Park Avenue psychiatrist and a human rights worker, who go to Bosnia to help women confront their memories of war and emerge deeply changed themselves. Necessary Targets is a groundbreaking play about women and war--about the violence of dark memories and the enduring resilience of the human spirit. Melissa, an ambitious young writer, and J.S., a successful but unsatisfied middle-aged psychiatrist, have nothing in common beyond the methods they have been taught to distance themselves from other people. As J.S. begins to feel compassion for the women whose tragedies she has been sent to expose, she turns on Melissa, who finds safety in control. In an unexpected moment of revelation, J.S. and the women she is supposedly treating find a common ground, a place to be taught and a place to learn. Necessary Targets has been staged in New York by Meryl Streep, Anjelica Huston, and Calista Flockhart, and performed in Sarajevo with Glenn Close and Marisa Tomei.… (more)

Rating

(13 ratings; 4.1)

User reviews

LibraryThing member FireandIce
In my opinion, Eve Ensler is a monstrously talented writer. Necessary Targets is not the best display of her talents. The subject matter of this play is disturbing (the stories of female refugees in the former Yugoslavia), but I was more disturbed by the lack of feeling in this play. It took me an
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hour and a half to read it, and it sort of felt like it took her about as long to write it. If you're not familiar with her body of work, I'd suggest starting with The Vagina Monologues, not Necessary Targets.
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Language

Original language

English

Original publication date

2001

Physical description

122 p.; 5.2 inches

ISBN

0375756035 / 9780375756030
Page: 0.3273 seconds