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Complete summary of David Henry Hwang's F.O.B.. eNotes plot summaries cover all the significant action of F.O.B..

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Anders Lustgarten's play, back for a second run this year at Soho Theatre, is demonstrably born from anger at the West's apparent apathy towards the growing number of migrants drowning in the Mediterranean.

It consists of two seemingly unconnected but interwoven monologues: one delivered by Stefano, a former fisherman in Lampedusa whose job is now to trawl the seas retrieving the bodies of the dead; the second by Denise, a half-Chinese university student in Leeds who works as a pay day loan collector to finance her degree and who, when not chasing poor people for money, is chasing the government for benefits for her disabled mother.

It's Stefano's story we connect to most strongly at first, partly thanks to Steven Atkinson's uncomfortably intimate production, which seats the audience on benches around a small stage and has both actors address us directly. As Ferdy Roberts' salty-voiced Stefano describes being out on the boat and witnessing what cold water can do to a body lying face down in the sea, it's almost as though we are out there with him.

Initially, this play can feel suspiciously like a lecture, and in the case of Louise Mai Newberry's baleful Denise, who encounters racism daily and has nothing but contempt for the way Britain treats its needy, a diatribe. It's saved by the sheer poetic power of Lustgarten's language and by a formidable performance from Roberts, who combines pungent earthiness with an eloquent empathy.

He bitterly mourns the lack of job opportunity for Italians, let alone migrants, in his home country, and is equally angrily describing the way smugglers have started running women-only boats - so they can pile in more people and rape them mid-journey.

* Mediterranean migrant crisis: should I cancel my holiday?

There's a touch of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner about him, as he recounts how a night-time trip to save a stricken migrant boat turns into a hallucinatory nightmare. Yet, while Lustgarten has every right to take European attitudes towards migrants to task, the play gradually becomes about something else.

Prickly, brittle Denise is floored by small acts of kindness shown to her in the wake of her mother's death. Stefano, who weeps over the people he can't save, is transported by the joy on the faces of those he does.

In the end, this angry play about our disregard for those less fortunate is also a curiously moving hymn to the small, transfiguring acts of compassion amid a sea of indifference.

Until July 25. Tickets: 020 7478 0100; sohotheatre.com

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Lampedusa, Soho Theatre, review: 'curiously moving'

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Anders Lustgarten's play , back for a second run this year at Soho Theatre, is demonstrably born from anger at the West's apparent apathy towards the growing number of migrants drowning in the Mediterranean.

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Theatrical play about Immigration written by Mohamed Karim Harchi, Alessia Farci,. Cristian Stefano Garofalo.

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I Don't Want It (The Immigrant, the musical)

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Me (Lindsey Powell) as Leah and Joey Zangardi as Haskell in The Immigrant, the Musical at the Stage Door Theatre. March 2008. This is a 4-person chamber musical by Knapp and Alper based on the play by the same name.

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The Immigrant

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The Immigrant is a four-person chamber musical with music by Steven M. Alper and lyrics by Sarah Knapp, with a book by Mark Harelik. The show is based on Harelik's 1985 play of the same name.

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[responsivevoice_button voice="US English Male" buttontext="Listen to Review"]
By William Massolia.
Directed by Dorothy Milne. Produced by Griffin Theatre. At The Den's Heath Main Stage, Chicago. Thought-provoking testimonies to our immigrant heritage. In a time
In our present time when Trump is trying to curb immigration, Griffin's artistic director William Massolia has penned a work from the letters and other writings of the various ethnic groups and races that found their way to the American shores from Jamestown in the early 1600's to present day refuges from the Middle East and Asia. With the help of video projections (by Brock Alter), Massolia presents a crew of thirteen actors, sporting authentic ethnic accents, to depict the vast and various groups who found their way to the American shores in search of a bitter life.

Juanita Andersen,Katie Campbell, Jennifer Cheung, Aneisa Hicks, Christopher W. Jones, Francisco Lopez, Adam Marcantoni, Sean McGill, Rasika Ranganathan, Omer Abbas Salem, Scott Shimizu, Jason VonRohn, and Elizabeth Hope Williams each had their moments to sparkle as either Irish, Dutch, German, native American, Indian, Chinese, Japanese or African (etc.). Massolia's research found letters, books, chronicles, public records and other records that spoke to who, why and when each group arrived InTo America.

Most groups arrived here to escape persecution, war or economic plight. Others camr to fulfill their hopes and dreams for a new life. This show dramatized over 60 personal immigrant narratives representing more that 30 countries. covering more that 400 years of multicultural world history. Included here are the story of both African slaves and white indentured servants (semi-slaves?).

One of the most telling traits of this show is the treatment of common men and women, the real immigrants, not the upper-class privileged immigrants who came here with land grants and armies. This presentation is about common folks in their own words. We hear their plights and their desires - and - their problems one they arrived. We realize that discrimination was always a fabric of the American Experience. That fear of new arrivals, especially those who looked different and had different cultures, was hard to assimilate yet somehow they did become "Americans."

In To America is a fitting tribute to the spirit of what it really means to be an American. It is a reminder that our strength as a country comes from the toughness and willingness to sacrifice and assimilate into a special country...based in "unalienable Rights' of Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

In the Age of Trump, we sure need reminding of our past..too bad we can't hog-tie Trump and make him and his cronies sit through a performance of In To America? But we can get students to see this marvelous tribute to the spirit of those tough souls who braved hardships to get to American. In To American brings their stories to life. See this important show!
Highly Recommended.
Tom Williams.
Jeff Recommended. At The Den's Health Main Stage, 1323 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago, IL, call 866-811-4111, www.griffintheatre.com, tickets $36, seniors/veterans $31, Thursdays thru Saturdays at 7:30 pm, Sundays at 3:30 pm, running time is 100 minutes without intermission.

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One of the most telling traits of this show is the treatment of common men and women, the real immigrants, not the upper-class privileged immigrants who came here with land grants and armies. This presentation is about common folks in their own words.

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In this special edition of the Guardian Books podcast, we present a full-length audio adaptation of the political stage play, Lampedusa.

Stefano follows in the footsteps of generations of fishermen. But in the 21st century the catch is very different: his job is to pull drowned bodies of migrants out of the Mediterranean. Meanwhile in the bleakest corners of the UK, Denise tramps from door to door collecting payday loans, witnessing crippling hardship and hearing complaints about immigration.

Written by award-winning playwright Anders Lustgarten and based on the Soho Theatre production directed by Steven Atkinson, Lampedusa puts us in the shoes of those whose job it is to enforce our rules, this is the story behind the headlines of two strangers finding hope and connection where they least expect it.
Denise - Louise Mai Newberry
Stefano - Ferdy Roberts Produced in association with Guardian Membership and based on the stage production produced by Soho Theatre and Hightide Festival Theatre, in association with Unity Theatre Liverpool.
The stage version of the play will be running at the Soho Theatre from Tuesday June 30th to Saturday 25th of July, click here to book tickets.
'Lampedusa' by Toumani Diabaté and Sidiki Diabaté
From the album 'Toumani & Sidiki' (World Circuit Records)
Published by World Circuit Music / Sony BMG
Available via iTunes

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produced by Matt Hill and directed by Steven Atkinson

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Lampedusa by Anders Lustgarten - audio drama

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In this special edition of the Guardian Books podcast, we present a full-length audio adaptation of the political stage play, Lampedusa. Stefano follows in the footsteps of generations of fishermen. But in the 21st century the catch is very different: his job is to pull drowned bodies of migrants out of the Mediterranean.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Anders Lustgarten's play, back for a second run this year at Soho Theatre, is demonstrably born from anger at the West's apparent apathy towards the growing number of migrants drowning in the Mediterranean.

It consists of two seemingly unconnected but interwoven monologues: one delivered by Stefano, a former fisherman in Lampedusa whose job is now to trawl the seas retrieving the bodies of the dead; the second by Denise, a half-Chinese university student in Leeds who works as a pay day loan collector to finance her degree and who, when not chasing poor people for money, is chasing the government for benefits for her disabled mother.

It's Stefano's story we connect to most strongly at first, partly thanks to Steven Atkinson's uncomfortably intimate production, which seats the audience on benches around a small stage and has both actors address us directly. As Ferdy Roberts' salty-voiced Stefano describes being out on the boat and witnessing what cold water can do to a body lying face down in the sea, it's almost as though we are out there with him.

Initially, this play can feel suspiciously like a lecture, and in the case of Louise Mai Newberry's baleful Denise, who encounters racism daily and has nothing but contempt for the way Britain treats its needy, a diatribe. It's saved by the sheer poetic power of Lustgarten's language and by a formidable performance from Roberts, who combines pungent earthiness with an eloquent empathy.

He bitterly mourns the lack of job opportunity for Italians, let alone migrants, in his home country, and is equally angrily describing the way smugglers have started running women-only boats - so they can pile in more people and rape them mid-journey.

* Mediterranean migrant crisis: should I cancel my holiday?

There's a touch of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner about him, as he recounts how a night-time trip to save a stricken migrant boat turns into a hallucinatory nightmare. Yet, while Lustgarten has every right to take European attitudes towards migrants to task, the play gradually becomes about something else.

Prickly, brittle Denise is floored by small acts of kindness shown to her in the wake of her mother's death. Stefano, who weeps over the people he can't save, is transported by the joy on the faces of those he does.

In the end, this angry play about our disregard for those less fortunate is also a curiously moving hymn to the small, transfiguring acts of compassion amid a sea of indifference.

Until July 25. Tickets: 020 7478 0100; sohotheatre.com

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Lampedusa, Soho Theatre, review: 'curiously moving'

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Anders Lustgarten's play , back for a second run this year at Soho Theatre, is demonstrably born from anger at the West's apparent apathy towards the growing number of migrants drowning in the Mediterranean.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Complete summary of David Henry Hwang's F.O.B.. eNotes plot summaries cover all the significant action of F.O.B..

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Immigration has been a subject of art and storytelling for as long as stories and borders have existed. One of the most fundamentally dramatic human experiences, the act of moving one's whole life to another country or continent brings with it a wide range of emotions, opportunities, and obstacles, which are the natural stuff of great theatre. Plays about immigration have long offered insights into culture, identity, family ties, and more, and particularly in America-a nation of immigrants-they have been a key part of the theatrical conversation for many decades, written by some of our most celebrated dramatists. As a legal writer here and also a playwright, I offer the following list of five incredible plays that tackle immigration or the immigrant experience as their subject; a selection that hints at the wide variety of stories there are to tell, and the differing ways that artists have approached them.

One of the breakout Broadway musicals of the late 1990s, Ragtime won four Tony Awards when it premiered in 1998, including Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Musical Score. Set in early twentieth century New York, the action follows three groups of people: an upper-class white Protestant family in New Rochelle, New York, represented by Mother, the family matriarch; African Americans in the Harlem Renaissance, represented by Coalhouse Walker Jr., a musician; and Eastern European immigrants, represented by Tateh, a Jewish widower just arrived from Latvia with his young daughter.

Beginning at Ellis Island, Tateh's journey starts out with hope and anxiety that soon turns to despair as his daughter becomes ill, and he cannot afford to care for her on his meager earnings selling silhouettes from a street corner cart. The story of Ragtime, however, is the story of the American capacity for reinvention. Not only does Tateh find within himself a passion and potential that leads to career success, but the musical ends with the creation of an entirely new kind of multicultural American family when Tateh marries Mother, joining their two families, and adopts Coalhouse Walker Jr.'s son, who has been orphaned. The message is clear: America flourishes through the mixing of different cultures, races, and classes. This is the classic immigration story at its most optimistic. With singing.

Winner of four Pulitzer Prizes in addition to the Nobel Prize for Literature, Eugene O'Neill is often considered America's foremost dramatist, the father of modern playwriting. He was also the son of Irish immigrants, and his masterpiece, Long Day's Journey Into Night, is the most autobiographical of any of his plays, at least in terms of the characters' circumstance. While the play has many themes, and is perhaps most overtly concerned with addiction and illness, its handling of the immigrant experience is particularly nuanced and pervasive.

Long Day's Journey is the story of a single family, the Tyrones, over the course of a day, and every character in the family, as well as their maid and neighbor, can be viewed as representing a different stage of assimilation into mainstream American culture. James Tyrone, the father, is a first generation immigrant, balancing success in his new country with pride in the traditions, identity, and church of his homeland.

In largest contrast, his sons, Jamie and Edmund, have purposely rejected their Irish roots and replaced them with fully American cultural touchstones-a constant source of conflict between Jamie, the eldest, and James throughout the text. While rarely brought up overtly, the story of this generational conflict is told through subtle familial jabs, teasing, and small outbursts, the way most family conflicts are experienced-making it a particularly resonant portrayal of these intimate relationships, and especially those that have been built in a new country.

Similar to Long Day's Journey Into Night, but much more direct in its tackling of these themes, Chinese-American playwright David Henry Hwang's Obie Award-winning play, FOB, examines the different stages of generational assimilation experienced by immigrant families and communities. Hwang is one of the American theatre's most revered and widely produced contemporary writers, and FOB was Hwang's first play, premiering in 1980.

Set in a Chinese restaurant in southern California, the play takes its name from a slur often directed at newly arrived Asian immigrants-the same term the ABC sitcom, Fresh Off the Boat, takes its title from. Magical and non-naturalistic, FOB's characters are both normal Chinese-American college students and mythic Chinese warriors and gods, who have lived through every wave of Chinese immigration to America, and the entirety of history before the start of this epoch. With humor and theatricality, FOB explores the conflicts between newly-arrived Chinese immigrants and their predecessors, the desire for and fear of assimilation, and the changing nature of the "Fresh Off the Boat" stereotype in times when it has required a great deal of money to emigrate.

Born in Havana, Cuba, Maria Irene Fornés immigrated to the United States with her mother and sister in 1945, at age fourteen, and became a US citizen in 1951. She was heavily involved in the avant garde Off-Off-Broadway theatre movement of the 1960s, and has had an influential decades-long career as an important Cuban-American and feminist voice in the American theatre. Her last play, Letters From Cuba, premiered in 2000 and is the only play that she acknowledges as somewhat autobiographical, though it is far from simply that.

Taking place in both Cuba and New York, simultaneously, the title comes from letters read aloud throughout the play between Fran, a Cuban-American dancer living in New York, and her brother Luis, who still lives in Cuba. While playing with different forms of love-familial, romantic, and other-between Fran and Luis, Fran and her male roommates, Luis and his son Enrique, the center of the play is the brother-sister relationship which exists in a sort of spiritual closeness despite their worlds moving at different paces. Unlike the other plays on this list, Letters From Cuba is delicate and bittersweet, allowing for the experience of ties that exists beyond the borders of nation-states.

Finally, we'll end with a play that most people probably know, but few have thought of as an "immigration play." The oldest plays in the Western canon are the ancient Greek tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, and Euripides' Medea is certainly the most popular and widely produced of these in modern times. Part of the reason for this modern popularity is a sense that the emotions of this story, though heightened to the levels of Greek tragedy, are supremely modern and relatable. People move much more than they used to, and can conceive of leaving their families and homelands to be with someone they love, to build a family in a new land and hope for it to flourish.

This is the story of Medea, a princess of Colchis, who leaves her family and kingdom to return to Corinth with her love, Jason. In a new land, completely isolated from her loved ones and culture, Jason then abandons her for a more politically-advantageous marriage. She responds by murdering the two children she has with Jason to avenge the betrayal. While this response is certainly heightened and horrific to meet the standards of Greek tragedy, it is worth noting that the betrayal itself is heightened by Medea's experience as an immigrant. This is further explored in a recent adaptation of the classic text: Mojada by Luis Alfaro, which translates the character of Medea into a quiet Mexican seamstress living without legal immigration status in a modern day American city (Alfaro has so far set versions in both Chicago and Los Angeles for specific regional productions), isolated by her legal status and afraid to leave the house, and troubled by her husband's shifting affections.

Art exists to help us make sense of the experiences that shape our lives, and the experience of immigration involves nearly every aspect of life-from relationships, to identity, language, fears, hopes and dreams. These plays explore each of these subjects eloquently and with great impact, from their own vantage points.

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5 of the Best Plays About the Immigrant Experience

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Immigration has been a subject of art and storytelling for as long as stories and borders have existed. One of the most fundamentally dramatic human experiences, the act of moving one's whole life to another country or continent brings with it a wide range of emotions, opportunities, and obstacles,