About the work
Eve Ensler wrote Necessary Targets after interviewing Bosnian war refugees during a trip to the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Before its stage premiere, the play received several public readings, including one in New York in 1996 with Meryl Streep and Anjelica Huston and one in London with Vanessa Redgrave. Its stage premiere took place in November 2001 at Hartford Stage in Connecticut, directed by Michael Wilson; in 2002 the production transferred off-Broadway to the Variety Arts Theatre in New York.
Plot
New York psychiatrist J.S. and trauma therapist Melissa travel together to a refugee camp in Bosnia to help war survivors process their experiences. Through their encounters with five Bosnian women of different backgrounds, the refugees gradually open up and reveal deep trauma, an experience that lastingly changes the initially detached J.S. most of all.
Cultural significance
Critical response was mixed: reviewers praised the unusual focus on the inner transformation of the American helpers and its avoidance of simple pathos, while criticising its structure and characterisation. Following the international success of Ensler's The Vagina Monologues, the play drew far more attention than it had at its first readings in 1996.