God Said This (Yale Drama Series)

By: Leah Nanako Winkler

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Synopsis: The 2018 winner of the Yale Drama Series competition is a riveting exploration of family and death Set in Kentucky, this compelling drama centers around a Japanese-American family reunited as their matriarch undergoes cancer treatment. The father, James, is a recovering alcoholic seeking redemption, and the two daughters are struggling to overcome their differences—Sophie is an ardent born-again Christian, while Hiro lives a single’s life in New York City. John, an old high school classmate of Hiro’s who is now a single dad, worries about leaving a legacy for his son. Wry and bittersweet, God Said This vividly captures the complexities of a familial reconciliation in the throes of crisis and looks deeply at the meaning of family—Japanese, Southern, and otherwise. This is the first Yale Drama Series winner chosen by Pulitzer prize–winning playwright Ayad Akhtar, who describes the play as conveying “a deeply felt sense of the universal—of the perfection of our parents’ flawed love for each other and for us; for the ways in which the approach of death can order the meaning of a human life.”