Hedy Weiss: Like Tennessee Williams and Samuel Beckett, Chicago-bred playwright Sarah Ruhl understands that the theater is designed to thrive on language somewhat different from the sort we use in everyday conversation. Call that language poetry, or stylization, or something akin to music -- however you describe it, Ruhl has the ability to make her audiences listen to words (and begin to think about the world), in a fresh way. She knows how to make us dizzy with familiar words -- their power to deceive, disarm, seduce, startle, unsettle.
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