A SAMUEL FRENCH, INC. TITLE

Stunning

Full-Length Play, Drama  /  4w, 2m

David Adjmi

An eye-opening, intimate look into the world of sixteen-year-old Lily, who lives in a Syrian-Jewish community in Brooklyn with her much older husband - and what occurs when an unlikely relationship with her African-American maid begins to form.

Stunning

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  • Cast Size
    Cast Size
    4w, 2m
  • Duration
    Duration
    120 minutes (2 hours)
  • SubGenre
    Subgenre
    Not Applicable
  • Audience
    Target Audience
    Adult
Accolades
Accolades
  • David Adjmi is the 2010 recipient of the Whiting Award for Drama

Details

Summary
Sixteen-year-old Lily knows nothing beyond the Syrian-Jewish community in Brooklyn where she lives a cloistered life with her much older husband. Soon an unlikely relationship with her enigmatic African-American maid opens Lily's world to new possibilities – but at a huge price. David Adjmi's daring new work shifts from caustic satire to violent drama as it exposes the ways we invent and defend our identities in the melting-pot of America.
History

Stunning was originally produced in March 2008 by Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Washington DC.


Keywords
Performing Groups
LILY SCHWECKY - (sixteen) Truly “cute”, slight, naifish, something of an oddball. The “baby” – she’s sixteen going on about 11; she’s a bit regressed. Her mind works quickly but her thoughts are incredibly scattered. A follower, but it’s more out of a need for connectedness than an innate passivity.
BLANCHE NESBITT – (forties) Lily’s new housekeeper, African American, an extremely intelligent, voluble, and terribly sensitive autodidact. Damaged, but maintains a great sense of irony and dry humor. She adapts to survive - she’s performative, and the performance wears her down eventually. An outsider.
IKEY SCHWECKY – (forty-five) Lily’s new husband: controlling, brute, bumptious, but there’s something fragile in him, broken – he’s more transparent than he thinks.
SHELLY – (early-twenties) Lily’s big sister; a leader; she’s got a stentorian quality, but naturalizes this by cultivating “girly” preoccupations. The laziness of her "r’s and a’s" feels calculated and somehow hostile.
JOJO – (thirties, early forties) Shelly’s uxorious husband; basically a good guy but limited; rather put upon, has trouble sticking to his guns.
CLAUDINE - (nineteen) a bit hysterical; unselfconscious – even brute – in her bids for approval. She has a desperate conformity.
  • Time Period Contemporary
  • Features Contemporary Costumes / Street Clothes
  • Duration 120 minutes (2 hours)
  • Cautions
    • Gun Shots
    • Intense Adult Themes

Media

REVIEWS

"Nobody is what they appear to be in Stunning, THE RAZOR-SHARP SATIRICAL TRAGEDY by David Adjmi. [The producers at LTC3] have succeeded: Stunning frequently lives up to its name, offering a brutal yet witty view of groupthink and slippery identity politics among Syrian Jews in Brooklyn...the hippest ticket in town"  
- NY1

"Unless you happen to live in an insular Syrian-Jewish community, the culture shock of Stunning could be quite...well, stunning. David Adjmi's eye-opening drama about a despotic rag merchant, his tyrannized child bride and the black maid who challenges the medieval customs of their domestic life has a chilling impact. Riveting performances and super-stylish staging polish the play's satirical weapons of high dudgeon, while adding to the luster of LCT3, the developmental wing of Lincoln Center currently making a splash in its inaugural season at the Duke."  
- Variety

"David Adjmi's off-Broadway debut is a striking, and yes, stunning black satire of the insular Syrian-Jewish community in Midwood, Brooklyn."  
- Flavorpill

"The advantage of writing about something you know pays off handsomely for multi-award-winning playwright David Adjmi...Careening courageously, but never recklessly, between satire and melodrama —and ultimately tragedy— Stunning is an eye-opening, intimately focused look into the marriage of a couple within a sect that guards its insularity and its ingrained religious/cultural identity...astonishingly provocative"
- Curtain Up

"A deft touch for both comedy and drama...Richly defined characters tackle sensitive topics insightfully and often to incendiary effect. David Adjmi is quickly building a reputation for unvarnished presentations of offbeat and disturbing themes." - Variety

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Music

  • Musical Style N/A (Not a musical)
  • Vocal DemandsN/A (Not a musical)
  • Chorus Size N/A (Not a musical)

Licensing & Materials

  • Minimum Fee: $120 per performance

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Authors

David Adjmi

David Adjmi
David Adjmi was called 'virtuosic' by the New York Times and he was listed as one of the Top Ten in Culture for 2011 by The New Yorker magazine. His play Marie Antoinette received a critically acclaimed world premiere co-production with A.R.T. and Yale Rep. The play won 3 Con ...
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