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The project funded by the Miniatura 6 grant in 2023 involved two research trips to the United States, coupled with individual meetings with two contemporary American playwrights: Martyna Majok and Aleshea Harris. The trips to New York and Los Angeles, along with interviews with the authors in the places where they create and stage their plays, allowed for the collection of source materials necessary for conducting in-depth research into their works in the convention of rhetorical polyphony (author / theatrical creator / audience) in successive stages. The journey enabled the refinement of research fields for the analysis of the boundary experiences of immigrants (Majok) and African Americans (Harris) portrayed in plays created between 2014 and 2022. What distinguishes the project is the direct involvement of both authors in the development of the concept and shape of these studies, treating autobiography as a "pretext for creation" (Krajewska, Contemporary Drama, 2005). Topics closely related to life history, thoughtfully considered by Majok and Harris in their works, and then subjected to directorial and academic interpretation, offer numerous possibilities for rhetorical exegesis.
The planned polyphony in the project is essential to reveal how themes of exclusion and discrimination in various (social and creative) groups manifest in diverse ways on the pages of drama and on stage. They create tension, inspire passion, and thus make these issues continually socially and politically challenging. The female protagonists of Majok’s and Harris's plays lament lives lost due to racial and ethnic violence and confront the poverty, social injustice, and exclusion that affect them. A parallel running through the lives of these heroines is the inability to break free from the suffering present in their life situations. Consequently, they cannot cross the invisible boundary to the mystical "out-side" (Catherine Malabou), where at least psychological suffering could be alleviated. The research initiated during the planned trip will, in the longer term, contribute to the preparation of research articles and a monograph on the mentioned authors, as well as enable the translation and consultation of Aleshea Harris’s recent play, On Sugarland, into Polish.
The foundation for the Miniatura project was laid by two previous grants. In 2020, funding from NAWA enabled her to undertake research at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center. In 2022, the German Society for Contemporary Drama in English (CDE) awarded her a scholarship to present her research findings on Martyna Majok’s Cost of Living at the 30th CDE conference, "Theatre & the City," in Paris, where she met Aleshea Harris.
