The World of Extreme Happiness: Modern Plays
Ebook
Overview
When Sunny is born in rural China, her parents leave her in a slop bucket to die because she’s a girl. She survives, and at 14 leaves for the city, where she works a low-paying factory job and attends self-help classes to improve her chances at securing a coveted office position. When Sunny’s attempts to pull herself out of poverty lead to dire consequences for a fellow worker, she is forced to question the system she’s spent her life trying to master – and stand up against the powers that be.
Savage, tragic and desperately funny, The World of Extreme Happiness is a stirring examination of a country in the midst of rapid change, and individuals struggling to shape their own destinies.
An incredibly powerful, assured, urgent drama about China - a country in the midst of rapid change - by the writer of the acclaimed Lidless, Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig.
Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig’s play Lidless (published Methuen Drama, 2011, and by Yale University Press in Autumn 2009) received the Yale Drama Series Award, an Edinburgh Fringe First Award, the Keene Prize for Literature, and the David Calicchio Emerging American Playwright Prize.
Published to coincide with the National Theatre’s production as part of the Shed space’s inaugural season.
Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig is a breathtakingly exciting young voice in the theatre. She is able to combine politically relevant subject matter with enduring questions facing society.
Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig was awarded the Wasserstein Prize in 2011.
Cowhig speaks bitterness and makes us sit up and listen.
Fearless, zippily-paced, and satirical ... Cowhig forces us down the long hard look path.
Fiercely intelligent . . . powerful stuff
An excellent new play . . . a very strong script . . . The story grips and the characters are well drawn, demonstrating the complexities of human nature and the ability people have to put morals to one side.
Vital new writing from a talented new voice
Fascinating and ferocious.
- Title: The World of Extreme Happiness
- Author: Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig
- Series: Modern Plays
- Publisher: Methuen Drama
- Print Publication Date: 2013
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Pages: 80
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781472526908, 9781472529886, 147252988X, 1472526902
- Resource ID: LLS:9781472526908
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2025-04-22T13:45:07Z
Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig's play Lidless received the Yale Drama Series Award, the Scotsman Fringe First Award, the Keene Prize for Literature and the David Calicchio Emerging American Playwright Prize. In 2011 she was awarded the Wasserstein Prize. Her plays have been produced by Trafalgar Studios 2 in the West End, Page 73 Productions in New York, InterAct Theatre Company in Philadelphia and the Contemporary American Theater Festival in West Virginia. Cowhig was born in Philadelphia, and was raised in Northern Virginia, Okinawa, Taipei and Beijing.