About the Play:

A Body of Water is a full-length drama by Lee Blessing. A middle-aged couple awakens in an unfamiliar country house on a hill, surrounded by trees and glimpses of water. There's just one problem. They can't remember who they are or how they got there. In the middle of their growing panic trying remember their identity, a young woman drives up. Is she their daughter? Does she know them at all?

A Body of Water is about lost identity and rediscovering love. Moss and Avis, an attractive, middle-aged couple, wake up one morning in an isolated summer house high above a picturesque body of water. The weather's fine; the view's magnificent. There's only one problem – neither of them can remember who they are. When an unfamiliar woman named Wren arrives, her passive/aggressive behaviour only serves to confound Moss and Avis's efforts to get a hold on reality. Who is she? Their daughter? Their lawyer? Their torturer? The latter seems altogether possible when Wren forces them to look at grisly morgue photos of a bludgeoned child – their own? Wren is cruel one moment, kind the next. She keeps changing her story, and, by extension, theirs. Reality is as slippery as an ice cube in Wren's hands. Funny and charming, this is a lyrical, intriguing drama that examines the wisdom of embracing a pure moment of joy... when nothing else is certain.

A Body of Water premiered in 2005 at The Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota and won the 2006 Steinberg New Play Award. Primary Stages presented the New York premiere in 2008 off Broadway at 59E59 Theaters. Since then it has been successfully presented at professional theatres across the US, and has been mounted by colleges, and community theatres.

Cast: 2 female, 1 male

What people say:

"…a play rich in ideas about memory, identity, and fiction…[Blessing] lays down…a rich philosophical groundwork for the play's intrigue…artfully presented…." — Variety

"…gets the audience talking…raises questions about what is true and whom to believe…intriguing stuff." — Los Angeles Times

"…one of America's greatest playwrights…satisfying, ninety-five minutes of existential hide-and-seek." — St. Paul Pioneer Press

"…the work of a mature master dramatist in complete control of his materials." — San Diego Union-Tribune

About the Playwright:

Lee Blessing is an American playwright who remained in his hometown of Minneapolis working in regional theater before relocating to New York when he was in his forties. The author of over twenty plays and screenplays, he been nominated for Tony and Olivier Awards as well as the Pulitzer Prize. He is professor emeritus at Rutgers University, where for a dozen years he headed the Graduate Playwriting Program of Mason Gross School of the Arts.