Naomi Wallace and the dramaturgy of rehearsal

Lindsay B. Cummings

pp. 71-87

in: Scott T. Cummings, Erica Stevens Abbitt (eds), The theatre of Naomi Wallace, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013

Abstract

In Naomi Wallace's play In the Heart of America, set during the first Gulf War, the character Remzi poses the following questions to Craver, his fellow soldier and soon-to-be lover: "Let's say I"m lying over there, dead as can be, and then you see it's me, from a distance. But you still have to walk over to my body to check it out. So, how would you walk?" (Wallace 2001, 88).¹ In this scene, the first in the play between the two men, Remzi is asking Craver to define their relationship. He is also asking Craver to travel the distance between them, a distance delineated by race and class—Remzi is Palestinian-American and Craver is self-described "White Trash" from Kentucky. It is a distance, furthermore, created by the military ban on same-sex relationships then in effect. In what follows, the two men improvise, revise, and negotiate the most appropriate physical representation of their relationship.