Karen Malpede

Her characters are strong and fascinating, her contexts brilliant and horrifying, and her tone always warm and in the end loving.
—Andrew Solomon, past president of PEN American Center 

Karen Malpede is a downtown New York Theater mainstay known for her unflagging commitment to social justice.
—Brad Rothbart, American Theatre 

One of America’s more prominent political playwrights . . . These plays seek to bring us to our senses, intellectually, morally, and socially.
—Marvin Carlson, Commentary, Plays in Time, by Karen Malpede

Karen Malpede’s plays scream “Pay Attention.”
—Cindy Rosenthal, The Theatre Times 

Of Us 

Late-night shows are tricky beasts. And most of them require a jolt of caffeine to sustain interest until  near-midnight. Not “Us,” It works like a double espresso. Nancy Churnin, Los Angeles Times 

“It is beautiful, passionate, violent, erotic, and very frank — the language of love. I’ve never read  anything like it or seen anything like it onstage.” —Frédérique Michel, “Theater: A Night of Provocative  Drama,” Janice Arkatov, Los Angeles Times 

Of Better People 

Better People — a surreal comedy about genetic engineering that has caught the attention of scientists  as well as theatergoers — is shocking, funny, tight, and richly original.
—Kris Oser, New York Law Journal

Of Other Than We 

Malpede uses image-rich language and striking stage pictures to transmit an urgent call for global unity,  imagination, transformation, and action.
—Cindy Rosenthal, The Theatre Times 

Simultaneously unsettling, surreal and hopeful . . . a post-apocalyptic scenario in which survivors have a  chance to remake the world . . . a grand vision, born of catastrophe, but with the possibility of triumph. 
—Eleanor Bader, The Indypendent 

Wild, fun, & unnerving.
—Andrew Revkin, science and environmental journalist

A New York Times Critics’ Pick for “Theater This Season,” Fall 2019 

Of Blue Valiant 

Karen Malpede’s latest creation evokes the wordless love people and animals can experience. Hannah  Doyle is at wit’s end with grief and rage when she sees Blue galloping in an open but fenced-in field. She  is immediately smitten. What unfolds is an intense meditation on freedom, love, patience, taming, and  compromise. In short, it’s the stuff of human connection.
—Eleanor J. Bader, The Indypendent

A real kick in the gut and terrific writing.
—Naomi Wallace, playwright, MacArthur Fellow

Karen Malpede is the author/director of more than 20 plays and co-founder with the late actor/producer George Bartenieff of Theater Three Collaborative, a thirty-four-year-old, Obie winning, New York-based theater company that develops and premieres her poetic language, social justice plays. 

More on Malpede

A monologue from Other Than We 

[The Future, a few years after The Deluge, a full-scale climate disaster.]

TANAKA. I saw my family swept away in The Deluge, after the rains, in the winds, the floods, the water rushed . . .  On the road, walking inland, walking up hill, staggering away from the sea, a woman, battered by branches, cut and  scarred, seaweed stuck in her hair, asked if I might carry her child. She had a baby in her arms and she felt she could not go on. She wished to pass the child to me. Maybe I could carry it somewhere. I was walking. I was strong  enough. I passed her. I acted as if I had not heard. Perhaps, she had not said anything at all. Perhaps she had only looked and I saw as I used to see with my wife without words what was needed. I walked faster, as fast as I could  walk, I walked away from her. I believe she sat down with her child to die as I walked past. 

[Silence.] 

Homo sapiens became narrow-minded and selfish. They grew to think only of their own selves. They became  limited in their compassion. I wished to go on, mechanically walking, without wanting, I walked, I kept on walking.  Saving myself. We cannot think ahead; we cannot stop ourselves from grasping. We are afraid of death; we walk  away, we walk past the suffering of those not us. The suffering of others does not touch us as long as we walk. We  refuse to look. Even without a future, even without a plan, I walked on and on. One day it came to me, something  slight, I began for the first time in a long time to be able to hear my heartbeat. I began to walk in tune with that. I  thought, suddenly, it was not thought, it was feeling welling up, and I knew there will come a day, a time to come, when this ignorance will end, when the heart and the head will beat inside in unison, a thrum, thrum. It might not  happen to us. I had given up on people, on myself, I had given up. 

But I understood, there will come a different moment, a turning, in years, perhaps sooner than we dare to wish, when life reasserts itself, and there will come a new, a noble race of creatures who are capable of living fully, who  want the best for others, who understand themselves as a part of, not apart from, who neither fear nor despise,  who recognize, who bear their lives gladly, willingly, with restraint, and with joy welling up, and they will be happy  and fearless, careful, generous, and kind.

An excerpt from Dinner During Yemen: 

[Nita and Rita meet for dinner at Rita’s house. They are friends from work, among the remaining career diplomats  in the State Department. Nita is more knowledgeable in the ways of real politic than Rita, who looks up to her.] 

[A terrible cry is heard.] 

NITA. Is that an animal? 

RITA. Or a child. 

NITA. Why ever for? 

RITA. An animal must be. 

NITA. In a trap, perhaps. 

RITA. Animal-like. 

NITA. When they get that hungry, I suppose. 

RITA. That’s what I meant. 

NITA. Civilization is but a veneer. 

RITA. Why would anyone let their own child starve? 

NITA. No one would, let, I suppose. 

RITA. Not let, exactly. 

NITA. It’s complex. 

RITA. Totally. 

NITA. Allegiances, patronage, family. 

RITA. Names difficult to pronounce.

NITA. One can’t keep things straight in one’s head. 

RITA. Civil wars are the absolute worst. 

NITA. So much suffering for what? 

RITA. Would you like some oysters on the half-shell? 

NITA. Moon Shoals and Kumamoto. 

RITA. Afloat in their own juice. 

NITA. So smooth sliding down the throat. 

RITA. I don’t think they cry like that. 

NITA. Like what? 

RITA. What we just heard. 

NITA. A whimper, perhaps. 

RITA. That’s what I meant. 

NITA. When they get weak. 

RITA. Must have been an animal caught in a trap. 

NITA. Unsettling, nevertheless.

PURCHASE