• The Program: About Poof! | Cast & Crew
• Domestic Violence: The Issue | Talk About It | Get Help
• Black Women Playwrights: History | Interviews | Teachers' Guide

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Black Women Playwrights | Teachers' Guide

Domestic Violence

Growing up on a crowded Brooklyn street, Lynn Nottage could not avoid knowing a lot about her neighbors' problems. Family secrets were out in the open, often literally. One afternoon, while she was in grade school, Nottage saw a man beating his wife in the middle of the street while neighbors watched from their stoops.

Later, after college and graduate school, she worked for Amnesty International and saw photographs of women from around the world, the bruised and broken faces of women who had suffered from domestic violence.

Both experiences contributed to the writing of her play, Poof! The photographs were the most immediate inspiration, shocking her with their imagery and bearing witness that domestic violence affects all races, nationalities and classes. The childhood memory hovered in the background, speaking to the everyday threat of domestic violence and the kind of hidden, strangely ordinary tragedy it causes.

Lynn Nottage saw Poof! as rooted in the African-American and Hispanic communities in which she grew up. But Poof! has been translated into Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, and Welsh. It has been performed around the world. Audience reactions have been especially intense in Asia and Latin America.

In the Classroom

• Students might discuss how the writer's personal experiences found their way to the theater. How did the beating Nottage saw as a girl "sensitize" her to the problem of domestic violence?
• After seeing the photographs at Amnesty International, Nottage might have written a magazine article about domestic violence. Would that have been more effective than a play? How can a play about two women address a problem that affects millions of women around the world?
• The televised version of Nottage's play opens with street scenes interspersed with "photographs" of a variety of women. Those same women reappear at the end of the play when Loureen is sitting at the dinner table. What is the function of these women?
• How can a play written by an African-American about her community be understood in another culture? How can art reach across national and cultural boundaries? What can explain the play's cross-cultural appeal? Why have audience reactions to Poof! been especially strong in Asia and Latin America?

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