WHY WE HAVE A BODY
by Claire Chafee
January 14-30, 1999
at the Bath House Cultural Center, Dallas, Texas
Directed by Pam Myers-Morgan
Cast
Mary … Kelly Thomas
Lili … Joanna Schellenberg
Eleanor … Linda Comess
Renee … Linda Marie Ford
Assistant Director - Ellen Locy
Stage Managed by Michael Starcher
Set and Light Design by David Fisher
Costume Design by Paul Wackym
Properties by Bonny Henley
Sound Design by Robert Myers-Morgan
Written in 1993, Why We Have A Body won four San Francisco Dramalogue Awards, the Bay Area Critic's Circle Award for original script, and Newsday's George Oppenheimer Award, presented annually for the most impressive debut of an American playwright. It is included in Women Playwrights: The Best Plays of 1993 (Smith and Kraus, Inc.).
"Two young women, Lili and her emotionally troubled sister, Mary, ache for the return of their lost mother, Eleanor, who left home years ago to "get lost." In a collage of scenes the two sisters and their mother, and Lili's new lover, Renee, speak alternately to us and to each other as they try to live with absence, with great distance. Mary neatly solves the problem of distance by sending telepathic letters to her mother, alas not a possible solution for her sane sister. The vast spaces that separate us from our past, from the ones we love, and from knowing ourselves constitute the landscape of Why We Have a Body."
-from Liz Diamond's introduction to Women Playwrights: The Best Plays of 1993
