Dramaturgical Resources
2026
Big Love
By Charles L. Mee
Over the course of the season, our assistant directors and student dramaturgs will be compiling dramaturgical resources relating to each production as it develops. Below are some links to websites which relate to the history of the play, the biography of the playwright, and sites that contextualize and, we hope, shed light on the directorial approach to the dramatic material.
We hope you find these resources of interest.
Charles L. Mee (b. 1938)
Charles L. Mee was born on September 15, 1938, in Evanston, IL. He is an American playwright, historian, and author known for his collage-like style of playwriting, which uses radical reconstructions of found texts. He is also a Special Lecturer of theater at Columbia University and the only playwright member of the acclaimed and influential SITI theatre company.
Mee draws much of his inspiration from the works of Plato. Diagnosed with polio at the age of 14, Mee found he had nothing to do but read. With his time, he read all of Plato’s works and enjoyed the “...dialogue form, the opposing arguments, the turmoil of conflicting ideas and feelings.” He says that Plato “spoke to [his] mind and heart.” In his memoir, he also states that he “likes a book that feels like a crystal goblet that has been thrown to the floor and shattered, so that its pieces, when they are picked up and arranged on a table, still describe a whole glass, but the glass itself lies in shards.” He writes his plays to reflect that feeling of jumbled pieces of a whole.(https://www.charlesmee.org/)
Here is the official website of Big Love. It includes the script and the purpose behind Charles Mee’s approach to playwriting.
Mee has also written the plays True Love and First Love.
Big Love is inspired by The Suppliant Women, an ancient Greek tragedy by Aeschylus. In the play, the Danaids (fifty sisters) flee Egypt because they are being forced to marry their fifty male cousins. They arrive in Argos seeking protection and ask the king and people of the city to grant them sanctuary. Charles Mee reimagines this ancient story for a contemporary audience, portraying its questions about marriage, power, freedom, and responsibility through a more modern lens.
The play draws on the ancient Greek concept of xenia, or hospitality. In Greek culture, welcoming and protecting a guest was considered an important social and moral obligation. Hosts were expected to offer food, shelter, and protection, while guests also had obligations of their own.
The central question of the play Big Love is who has the right to decide whom a person marries. It is important to distinguish arranged marriage, in which the families may participate in choosing a partner but the individuals retain the ability to consent, from forced marriage, in which one or both people do not freely consent. The Danaids’ refusal of marriage raises more questions about bodily autonomy, gender expectations, family obligation, and the meaning of consent, which remain, perhaps increasingly, relevant in contemporary society.