Reza Abdoh

Book excerpt: Incorporating interviews, critical essays, reviews, and the complete text of the play, The Hip-Hop Waltz of Eurydice, this is an introduction to the influential and controversial theatre artist, Reza Abdoh. By the time he died of AIDS in 1995 at the age of 32, Abdoh had written, assembled and directed well over a dozen works for the stage. In this account of his career, Abdoh emerges as an internationally acclaimed artist who was influenced by a range of cultures and sources. Yet he is also distinctly American: a visionary who drew heavily on popular culture to expose sexual, racial and media obsessions in American society. Despite this influence, Abdoh's works are not typical of American theatre, according to theatre critic Daniel Mufson, because they vehemently reject sentimentality and happy endings.