Beautiful Man & Other Short Plays

Three short plays from award-winning Canadian playwright Erin Shields, centring on the inner lives of women, offering space for those who dare to listen.

An eviscerating satire of gender roles in popular culture, Beautiful Man imagines a world in which women are the subjects and men the objects. As three women dissect the latest Hollywood blockbuster, narrative after narrative of strong female characters fold into each other, fusing into a brutally recognizable story.

In Unit B-1717, a woman is trying to clean out her storage locker and say goodbye to the past, but an overwhelming feeling of dread forces her to confront the way she has historically subjugated herself to the needs of others.

In And then there was you, a mother addresses her child as they both visit milestones that offered them each independence, and in the process explores how the profound connection between mother and child evolves.

‘There’s a great deal of rage underlying [Beautiful Man], but also many humorous elements, and so many things to admire about Shields’s acute observations and inversions of expectation… Every new play from her is a challenge, and a treat’
- Toronto Star

‘A brilliant, brutal reminder of the realities of being a woman in a society that values beauty and compliance’
- NOW Magazine