My copy of 100 Essays is bristling with little pink post-it slips, always a sign of engagement. All the essays concern aspects of being a playwright (including being a playwright with children). From having children and dogs on stage to wondering what Chekhov meant, exactly, by 'lightness' on stage, not a lack of seriousness 'but to temper reality with strangeness, to temper the intellect with emotion'. Bring on the humble. Every essay, all of them short, takes on something Ruhl has noticed happening, or not happening. So she ponders if the new theatrical notion of having ceilings on stage is in imitation of the 'interiority' of a film. Stages first were outside, under the sky -- and anyway, a play is not cinema, so why? She is leery of formulaic work, of plays as a form of business (like movies). She writes about community theater which, in some ways, preserves the innocence of 'real' theater, even while sometimes being awful, of staging storms on stage reminding everyone that nothing is, actually, under control. Even on a stage. Some essays take on profound matters, others are more observations and quite funny. These are musings and opinions, which she knows very well are just her own opinions not necessarily truth. A wonderful read. ***** ( )

este libro tiene tantísimas ideas que quiero revisar y utilizar que probablemente me lo compre en algún momento ( )

Ruhl writes into her life and love of theater with charisma and wit. I appreciated her precision in these pieces and the spontaneity, where life breaks in. The collection reminded me of Mary Ruefle's The Most of It, although its more focused on the intersection of theater and Ruhl's life in its character and brevity.

I received several collections of essays for Christmas. This one has the best title. Sarah Ruhl is a playwright who has three young children. With three young children, she is circumspect about how much writing she'll be able to accomplish. In the first essay, she explains:

"I could lie to you and say that I intended to write something totalizing, something grand. But I confess that I had a more humble ambition - to preserve for myself, in rare private moments, some liberty of thought. Perhaps that is equally 7.

My son just typed 7 on my computer." (P. 4)

My kids are older now, but I still remember those days when they were small and all consuming and I rarely had a complete thought of my own. I looked forward to Ruhl's thoughts on what that was like. But in most of the essays, she leaves her home life behind. She reflects on theater and writing, on acting and audiences. While I was less interested in these topics, I was fascinated by the very brief essay form that Ruhl used to develop her ideas. I'd like to write, mostly as a way to reflect and think about what is most important, and these short essays seem to be a realistic way to think about the topics that preoccupy me, the topics that are my life. Again, in the first essay, Ruhl observes that writing is ultimately entwined with life, again drawing from her experiences as a young mom:

"There were times when it felt as though my children were annihilating me (truly you have not lived until you have changed one baby's diaper while another baby quietly vomits on your shin), and finally I came to the thought, All right, then, annihilate me; that other self was a fiction anyhow. And then I could breathe. I could investigate the pauses.

I found that life intruding on writing was, in fact, life. And that tempting as it may be for a writer who is also a parent, one must not think of life as an intrusion. At the end of the day, writing has very little to do with writing, and much to do with life. And life, by definition, is not an intrusion." (P. 4-5) ( )