ABSTRACT
Suzan-Lori Parks’ (b.1963) “Elements of Style” was published the 1994 volume The America Play and Other Works, which includes the former play along with several of Parks’ early plays like Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom (1989). It is a powerful artist statement in which Parks argues that the language in her plays “is a physical act.,” emerging in the wake of the clashes between the National Endowment for the Arts and conservative legislators over decency in art. Parks would go on to create other theoretical work, but “Elements of Style” was the first articulation of the theory behind her approach to playwriting, following her breakthrough work, The America Play (1994), and preceding Venus (1996), In The Blood (1998), and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Topdog/Underdog (2001).
