Saviana Stanescu’s “barbarian” heroines are not victims; they are strong, rebellious, and resilient women, who struggle to fulfill their potential despite inauspicious historical, geographical, and socio-economic circumstances.

Saviana Stanescu’s “barbarian” heroines are not victims; they are strong, rebellious, and resilient women, who struggle to fulfill their potential despite inauspicious historical, geographical, and socio-economic circumstances.

The three plays included in this volume (Don’t / Dream, For a Barbarian Woman, Useless) explore the contradictions of “civilization” and “the primitive”, privilege and exclusion, rich and poor, rational and irrational; with pathos, humor, and vivacity. Roman poet Ovid, exile, suicide, human traffic, undocumented immigrants and domestic workers are a few of the topics that intersect in this thought-provoking book of a multi-rooted playwright committed to bring outsiders center stage.