WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU RISK MAKE RISK THEATRE

Wong collects plays and essays that argue for the centrality of risk in drama.

Wong argues that risk serves as the fulcrum of tragedy. Characters gamble something, exposing themselves to catastrophe via unlikely but potentially ruinous events, as when Macbeth and his wife decide to kill the king or when Oedipus fails to heed Tiresias’ advice to abandon his search for his father’s murderer. Wong illustrates his theory with three examples of contemporary plays that emphasize risk as the engine of their plot. In Bloom by Gabriel Jason Dean tells the story of an American documentarian who stumbles upon the bacha bazi, or dancing boy, culture while working in Afghanistan. The Value by Nicholas Dunn follows three petty thieves who have just stolen a valuable piece of art and must now come to terms with its real worth. Children of Combs and Watch Chains by Emily McClain involves a husband and wife who, unable to conceive a child, each embark on a secretive “Gift of the Magi”–style plot to make the other a parent, putting their life together in serious jeopardy. Following the plays are six essays by Wong in which he further explores the ways risk functions in ancient Greek tragedies as well as works by Shakespeare and Arthur Miller. Wong extends his risk reading to the realm of the novel, using Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd as his primary example. Wong’s prose is clean and easy to follow even as he wades into textual analysis. He writes that Macbeth “is transformed by a series of low-probability, high-consequence events, in the beginning raised up by chance, and, in the end, cast down by the same power he hoped to harness. Macbeth is the story of how low-probability, high-consequence events encouraged a man to wager all-in.” The three plays are enjoyable in their own rights, particularly McClain’s gripping Children of Combs and Watch Chains, which manages to feel simultaneously classic and fresh. As a whole, the book is both a persuasive argument for Wong’s theory of tragedy and an impressive package in service of his preferred approach to literary criticism.

An insightful, thought-provoking blend of drama and critical theory.