"They watch me as they watch this"

the long version

Gertrude Stein wrote almost 100 plays, many of which were published and performed during her lifetime. In "They Watch Me as They Watch This", a full-length study of Stein's plays, Jane Palatini Bowers focuses on the author's contributions to the genre, and offers clarifying readings of these often difficult texts. In writing about Stein's plays, Bowers employs both semiotic and structuralist concepts but avoids the excessively abstract language and "scientific" approach often associated with this kind of criticism. "They Watch Me as They Watch This" provides critical analyses of key plays which illuminate the process of Stein's experimentation during her lifetime of playwriting.