Adrienne Kennedy - The Alexander Plays

The Alexander Plays

Suzanne Alexander is a recurring character in several of Kennedy's plays. She Talks to Beethoven, The Ohio State Murders, The Film Club, and The Dramatic Circle are collectively known as the Alexander Plays, and were published together under that title in 1992. Also published in 1992 was a letter written from Suzanne Alexander's perspective "Letter to My Students on My Sixty-First Birthday by Suzanne Alexander". The Alexander plays are characterized by less overt surrealism than many of Kennedy's earlier works, but still avoid linear narrative. In the foreword to the printed collection of plays, Alisa Solomon writes "the action of these plays is made up not of the events of Suzanne's life but of the process of turning memory into meaning."