As Ann-Marie MacDonald explains in her Afterword to
Belle Moral: A Natural History, which was published in 2005 to coincide with a production of the play at the renowned Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario,
Belle Moral“has its origins in an earlier play of mine called
The Arab’s Mouth” (153), a play that was first staged in 1990 by Toronto’s Factory Theatre and, in 1995, published by Blizzard Publishing. Produced and published between MacDonald’s breakout play,
Goodnight Desdemona(
Good Morning Juliet) and the even more successful novel,
Fall on Your Knees,
The Arab’s Mouthmay be considered as linking the two more well-known texts in terms of its themes. MacDonald explains in her Afterword:
After The Arab’s Mouth premiered, I knew that it was not quite finished
1839 words
Citation: Gordon, Neta. "The Arab's Mouth". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 28 November 2019 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=14670, accessed 25 November 2024.]