Paula Vogel claims that her “most significant contribution to the American theatre” was to encourage Sarah Ruhl's playwriting; she also predicts that Ruhl is so “uniquely talented” that she is “going to become her own vocabulary word” (qtd. in Al-Shamma 7, per Wren, “The Golden Rule,” 2005). In Sarah Ruhl: A Critical Study of the Plays, James Al-Shamma begins to define that “vocabulary” and its impact on contemporary American theatre. In this first comprehensive analysis of Ruhl's work, Al-Shamma endeavors to reach an interdisciplinary audience of theatre practitioners, scholars, and students with an in-depth examination of Ruhl's major plays. Following a brief discussion of her personal history, professional accomplishments, and artistic style, Al-Shamma explores Ruhl's work, including Eurydice, The Clean House, Melancholy Play, Dead Man's Cell Phone, Late: a cowboy song, Passion Play, and In the Next Room, or the vibrator play, to demonstrate that underlying the playwright's aesthetic, which treats weighty philosophical subjects—such as love and loss—with “light touches of humor,” is a poetic sensibility that creates poignant, yet whimsical images for the stage (8, 11).

Although each chapter focuses on a single play, Al-Shamma presents his study of Ruhl's oeuvre thematically rather than chronologically to support his initial observation that a segment of the playwright's work was profoundly influenced by the death of her father when she was 19. To establish this point, Al-Shamma begins with Eurydice (2003) and The Clean House (2004), which he groups with Dog Play (1998), to identify a “troika” of Ruhl's plays that center on the themes of death and bereavement (37). Although Al-Shamma presents a (very brief) overview of Dog Play in a later chapter discussing less significant works, his explication of Eurydice and The Clean House illuminates an overarching theme in Ruhl's work: that “wisdom” exists when humans confront pain—even the final pain of death. Al-Shamma notes that Ruhl's approach is to treat this pain with a redemptive humor and “lightness” (6). He also offers a cursory review of the psychology of loss and the stages of grief in his discussion of these plays, and provides an overview of the mythological sources that served as the inspiration for Eurydice (particularly, Rilke's “Orpheus. Eurydice. Hermes.”). As he demonstrates, these two plays illustrate Ruhl's aptitude for weaving her own poetic language into mythic narratives, lacing them with moments of humor to ameliorate the painful experiences of love and loss.

Al-Shamma proceeds with an examination of Melancholy Play: a contemporary farce (2002) and Dead Man's Cell Phone (2007), a pairing that he distinguishes from the “death and bereavement” plays not only because of their “farcical tone” but also because of their general (rather than specific) treatment of sorrow (37). Here, the study shifts focus from Ruhl's meditation on pain and loss, to the equally “weighty” subjects of lost friendship, unrequited love, problematic marital relationships (including sexual dysfunctions, and physical and emotional abuse), world politics, and challenges to Christianity. The next chapters, while not as neatly connected as the first four, examine Late: a cowboy song (2003), Passion Play, a cycle in three parts (2007), and In the Next Room, or the vibrator play (2009) to analyze the recurring themes, symbols, and poetic imagery revealing Ruhl's quirkiness and whimsy, as well as her intellect.

Rigorous attention to textual detail and scrupulous research is perhaps the most impressive feature of this study, particularly the chapter addressing Ruhl's Passion Play. Written over a ten-year period, this three-and-a-half-hours-long drama presents the historical passion play in three parts, each set in a different historical period (Elizabethan England, Hitler's Germany, and contemporary America) and a vastly different location (London, Oberammergau, and Spearfish, South Dakota). The “dense imagery” and “watery ending” in the first part harks back to Eurydice, although, in the remaining two-thirds of the play, Ruhl draws upon biblical and Christian symbology to create striking imagery for the stage (110). Relying on Northrop Frye's archetypical symbols of the biblical apocalypse and revealing detailed biblical knowledge, Al-Shamma traces this multilayered imagery throughout the three parts of Ruhl's work, and provides cross-references to multiple biblical sources to illustrate a variety of possible interpretations. Here, as elsewhere, Al-Shamma describes particular scenes from national and regional productions and includes an assortment of performance photographs to aid the reader in visualizing the creativity employed by theatre practitioners staging Ruhl's work.

Though this study offers extensive explication and insightful analysis situating Ruhl both aesthetically and thematically, it would benefit from a more robust theoretical framework in order to provide a deeper understanding of the playwright's body of work. Considering the breadth of topics that Ruhl engages, evaluation of it from a sociocultural, gender, ageist, or political perspective would enhance this otherwise impressive study. Initially, Al-Shamma's conclusion appears headed toward such an evaluation, but instead it meanders into a renewed discussion of Ruhl's style and themes in comparison to three other playwrights. Bracketed by two short paragraphs reminding the reader of her engagement with “lightness,” themes of love and death, and her “stunning theatricality,” Al-Shamma's conclusion reopens a discussion focused on Ruhl's “place in American drama,” and compares her work to that of other nonrealists, namely Tony Kushner, John Guare, and Thornton Wilder (187, 196). These comparisons are valid considering Ruhl's engagement with myth, fantasy, magical realism, and poetic images, and Al-Shamma differentiates Ruhl from the others by commenting on her evocation of “unusual, startling, and whimsical imagery,” noting that her plays “almost always” end hopefully (189, 191). However, the emphasis on theme and style rather than theoretical orientation, and the placement of this material here rather than elsewhere in the study, makes this commentary seem more of an afterthought than a concluding evaluation.

Al-Shamma's Sarah Ruhl: A Critical Study of the Plays offers a comprehensive overview of the playwright, explicates and analyzes her major works, and identifies the weightiness and whimsy of her aesthetic in a manner that may prove beneficial to theatre practitioners, scholars, and students. Since the study addresses as many questions as it leaves unanswered, literary scholars bothered by its lack of theoretical focus should find it a source of inspiration to continue the conversation and further engage with the unique perspective and enchanting world of Sarah Ruhl.