Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Mlima’s Tale
    Mlima’s Tale
    Mlima’s Tale
    Ebook77 pages49 minutes

    Mlima’s Tale

    By Lynn Nottage

    4.5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    “A beautiful, endlessly echoing portrait of a murder and its afterlife. Ms. Nottage shaped this story with such theatrical inventiveness and discipline that it never feels sensational… A finely wrought fusion of elements.” —Ben Brantley, New York Times

    Continuing in her tradition of crafting thought-provoking, socially conscious dramas, Lynn Nottage’s play tells the story of Mlima, an elephant struck down by poachers for his magnificent tusks. Beginning in a game park in Kenya, the play tracks the trajectory of Mlima’s tusks through the ivory trade market while Mlima’s ghost follows close behind—marking all those complicit in his barbaric death.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTheatre Communications Group
    Release dateSep 14, 2021
    ISBN9781559369114
    Mlima’s Tale
    Author

    Lynn Nottage

    Lynn Nottage's plays include 'Crumbs from the Table of Joy,' 'Fabulation' and 'Intimate Apparel,' for which she was awarded the Francesca Primus Prize and the American Theatre Critics/Steinberg New Play Award in 2004. Her plays have been produced at theaters throughout the country. 'Ruined' is the winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and 'Sweat' is winner of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.

    Read more from Lynn Nottage

    Related to Mlima’s Tale

    Related ebooks

    Performing Arts For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      My 21st-century Touchstone Play: Theatre Stars Share The Shows That Shook Them To The Core

      Feb 19, 2021

      Here at the Evening Standard, we recently tried to pull together the 21st-century’s greatest plays (read our list and see if you agree). But what about those plays that impact us more personally, that seem to speak to us directly and leave us getting

      7 min read

    • Article

      Qui Nguyen Finds a Home in Orange County

      Apr 2, 2019

      As a playwright, I’m a little bit ADD artistically,” says Qui Nguyen. “I get bored really quickly. I put things in there that are kind of wild, just to keep myself entertained.” Nguyen’s breakthrough play, Vietgone, illustrates exactly what he’s talk

      5 min read

    • Article

      Pain And Love In The Backyard

      Feb 25, 2020

      In Will Arbery’s new play, five conservative Catholics in Wyoming gather late at night by a fire pit to argue, commiserate, and face the uncertain future of their faith and their country. Danya Taymor, who directed the play’s premiere at New York Cit

      8 min read

    • Article

      Mfa Or The Highway?

      Dec 25, 2019

      FOR YEARS, I IDENTIFIED AS A PLAY ‑ wright who wanted an MFA. I had seen those coveted three letters in almost every playwright’s bio, often attached to an illustrious university—an Ivy, or maybe a West Coast equivalent. I spent three autumns writing

      12 min read

    • Article

      Black Stage Report

      Feb 25, 2019

      Black Stage Report
      15 min read

    • Article

      Suzan-Lori Parks

      Apr 15, 2019

      The Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright on adapting classics, the black avant-garde and how much of the world is a stage

      2 min read

    • Article

      Critic's Notebook: Star Turns That Serve The Broadway Play — Elaine May, Daniel Radcliffe And Janet McTeer Show How It's Done

      Nov 26, 2018

      NEW YORK - When it comes to playwriting, Broadway has a supply problem. Although the new generation of American dramatists is blazingly talented, the great majority of these writers prefer the creative flexibility of more intimate stages. New dramas

      6 min read

    • Article

      An ‘Inheritance’ Deferred

      Oct 25, 2019

      An ‘Inheritance’ Deferred
      8 min read

    • Article

      Greater Clements

      Apr 27, 2020

      Greater Clements
      88 min read

    • Article

      “Where Did You Laugh?”

      Dec 14, 2019

      “Where Did You Laugh?”
      4 min read

    • Article

      The 10 Best Shows

      Dec 19, 2016

      The 10 Best Shows
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Art of TheaterNo. 18

      Dec 1, 2020

      The Art of TheaterNo. 18
      39 min read

    • Article

      Editor’s Note

      Jul 25, 2019

      IF THE FIERCE WOMAN IN A BROCADE JACKET ON OUR cover is unfamiliar to you, allow us to correct that. Playwright Adrienne Kennedy is an American original as distinctive as any artist who’s ever walked among us. Born in 1931, she began writing her lyri

      2 min read

    • Article

      Onstage March 19

      Feb 25, 2019

      Onstage March 19
      26 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Mlima’s Tale

    4.5/5

    2 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Mlima’s Tale - Lynn Nottage

      I

      THUNDER IS NOT YET RAIN

      A wilderness where a big tusker might seek refuge.

      The savannah. Full moon.

      Mlima, an elephant sensing danger, calls out to his fellow travelers.

      MLIMA (With intensity and urgency): When I was young I was taught by my grandmother to listen to the night. Really listen … for the rains in the distance … listen to the rustling of the brush … for the cries of friend or foe. She’d say you must listen with your entire body, feel how the earth shifts when there’s the slightest disruption, because how you listen can mean the difference between life and death. It’s the truth of the savannah, something we all learn at a very young age. Sacred words passed from generation to generation like stories of the verdant time before the violent crackle, before the drought and the madness … A time of plenty, when the plains and rivers were owned by all, a time recalled by my grandmother with such alacrity that one needn’t be nostalgic. She’d say if you really listen, our entire history is on the wind.

      (He listens and feels the night with his entire body, feet, ears, nose. Movement.

      Slowly, the layers of sounds of the savannah fill the space.

      The crickets, the orchestra of wild animals, cowbells, whistles, and the faraway voices of the Maasai.)

      Even now, I hear the remnants of stories told by Long Ears, the elder, who knew where to find the sweetest acacia trees or the cool dark mud that was said to keep him ageless. When pushed he’d tell of how, once, he roamed so far across the land that it took him one year to find his way back home through the thorny thicket.

      He returned with stories of rivers so wide they couldn’t be crossed, trees so tall they did battle with the sky, and a sea of bobbing beasts and men. He’d walked across a world with no fences, no roads or resistance. We listened, though no one here believed such a far-fetched

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1