About
the Book:
Humana
Festival 1993: The Complete Plays showcases plays
selected from the 17th annual cycle of world premieres, featuring a
remarkable array of work by some of the most exciting voices in the
American theatre.
The
Actors Theatre of Louisville (ATL) – the Tony Award-winning state
theatre of Kentucky – in 1976 produced two new works at its first Humana Festival – as it is known because of its corporate sponsorship. One was D.L. Coburn's
The Gin Game, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1978 and helped
launch what became the nation's most respected New American Play festival. For
six weeks every spring, Louisville exerts a gravitational pull on
producers and theatre lovers from around the country, who travel from
far and wide for the adventure of seeing a diverse slate of
fully-produced new plays. Many Humana Festival plays have gone on to
garner awards and subsequent productions, making a sustained impact
on the international dramatic repertoire.
This
anthology makes the genius of American playwrights available to an
even wider audience, allowing readers from around the world to
experience the collision of perspectives, styles and stories that
makes the festival such an invigorating celebration of the art form.
• Stanton's Garage is a full-length comedy by Joan Ackermann. A
poignant comedy featuring an odd assortment of troubled and obsessive
people. In a small-town garage miles from anywhere, two cars, both of
which were en route to a wedding, await repairs. The brilliant
mechanic may fix them instantly - or not. The breakdown leads to the
opportunity to think through the meaning of one's life and actions.
One is Ron's, the ex-husband of the bride to be, a man who missed his
divorce and certainly doesn't want to miss his wife's wedding. Think
of "Taxi" set in the South. (Cast: 4 female, 4 male)
• Deadly Virtues by Brian Jucha. An
exploration of virtue and sin. The Seven Deadly Sins threaten
damnation. The seven Moral Virtues promise transcendence. (Cast: 2
female, 3 male)
• Shooting Simone
by Lynn Kaufman. A literate, witty take on the life of
Simone de Beauvoir, mother of feminism, and her unconventional,
nearly life-long relationship with philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre,
father of Existentialism and a young idealist filmmaker. (Cast: 2
female, 1 male)
• The Ice Fishing Play
is a comedy by Kevin Kling. In an ice fishing house on a frozen
lake in northern Minnesota, Ron, an ice fisherman extraordinaire,
struggles to catch "the big one" only "the big one" doesn't
just mean the biggest fish in the lake. A funny, vibrant exploration
of the struggle to connect in a world of blizzards, frozen minnows,
memories and miracles. (Cast: 1 female, 6 male)
• What We
Do With It is a ten-minute drama by Bruce
MacDonald. Takes up the problem of incest. A
father and grown daughter who have not spoken for several years are
finally coming out to discuss some long buried secrets in a
psychiatrist's office. John denies his crime and claims that Cheryl
is mentally ill, but Cheryl is only beginning t remember what life
was like with her father. (Cast: 1 female, 1 male)
• Keely
and Du by Jane
Martin. Somewhere, a group is holding a young woman in a locked
room against her will. They aren't going to hurt her. They don't want
any ransom. They just want to change her mind about her unwanted
pregnancy. As thought provoking as it is controversial, Keely and
Du is about the humanity that underscores our convictions and the
prices we pay for them. (Cast: 1 female, 6 male)
• Poof!
is a ten-minute drama by Lynn Nottage. The laws of the universe tumble when a
meek woman finally speaks up in this 10-minute play concerned with
wife-battering. When a housewife comes to the end of her rope and
damns her abusive husband to hell, she doesn't expect him to
spontaneously combust. Now she has a pile of ashes on the floor, and
a life to reclaim. Her first play, Poof! was a co-winner of ATL's 1992
National Ten-Minute Play Contest. (Cast: 2 female)
• Tape is a 10-minute dark comedy by Jose Rivera. This play
places an unfortunate man in an antechamber of the afterlife. There
he is forced to listen to a tape of all the lies – to others and to himself
– that he ever told throughout his life. Tape assails the
viewer's conscience in a single short play. (2 female or male)
• Watermelon Rinds is a one-act comedic drama by Regina Taylor. What
happens to a dream deferred? Some pretty wild things, suggests this
satire about the reunion of a black family on the Rev. Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr.'s birthday. Talk of the past heats up until Mama's
repast explodes – literally! And all the while a young girl
watches, struggling to understand a society that demands sacrifice
but offers only promises in return. (Cast: 5 female, 3 male)
What people say:
"Louisville's 17th Humana Festival of New American Plays continues to develop a remarkable amount of significant work. The 1993 lineup proved unusually popular with both Louisville's sophisticated theater professionals and general audiences. Half of the 10 premieres were written by women. Three plays had all-black casts. Seven were politically controversial issue-plays."
— Los Angeles Times
"Here is a collection of nine
thought-provoking contemporary dramas by American playwrights, first
performed at the 17th Annual Humana Festival by the Actors Theatre of
Louisville this past spring. Included are five full-length plays, a
one-act play, and three ten-minute dramas. Subject matter covers such
issues as abortion, suicide, and child abuse. Watermelon
Rinds by Regina Taylor, the Emmy
Award-winning performer in TV's I'll Fly Away, is an absurdist's view
of African American family politics. Joan Ackermann's
Stanton's Garage takes place in rural Missouri
and examines the structure of human relationships in juxtaposition to
auto mechanics. A worthwhile addition to modern drama collections."
— Library Journal
"These works, all presented at
the Humana Festival, are written by a bolder generation of
playwrights, one which has been turning steadily away from realistic
drama and toward the poetry of a less bounded theater. This is not to
say, however, that they avoid contemporary issues. In a very funny
and provocative piece by Lynn Nottage, a woman
finds herself addressing a pile of ashes after raising her voice to
an abusive husband – the shock of the incident has caused him to
spontaneously combust. Regina Taylor takes the
reader to the gathering of a black family whose unresolved feelings
toward their heritage become apparent. One sister, voted Black Woman
of the Year, has bleached her skin and altered her face to such an
extent that her own father doesn't recognize her. People examine
their own lives in this collection as well. In Jose Rivera's short,
stark play, one man is sentenced to an eternity of listening to the
tapes of every lie he ever told. These are plays that ask questions –
about humanity, about the theater – and while the answers are not
always clear, the questions are almost certainly worth asking."
— Publishers Weekly
"Smith has collected a
sometimes uneven but often interesting group of shorter plays from
the seventeenth annual Humana Festival of New American Plays. The
best of these usually deal with some politically charged issue or
social concern (e.g., abortion, child abuse, and battered wives),
transforming it from an evening news story into a real concern of the
human heart. What We Do with It explores the
lingering effects of sexual abuse on a father, the abuser, and his
daughter, the victim; Keely and Du personalizes
the abortion debate in a meaningful way. Poof!
portrays an abusive husband who bursts spontaneously into flames,
much to the confusion and relief of his wife – though the reader
(or playgoer) will be left with the distinct feeling that the abuse
may go to a different level now that the husband is gone. ...this is
an engaging glimpse of today's playwrights and the contemporary human
landscape." — Booklist
About the Editor:
Marisa Smith has worked in the theatre as an actress,
producer, playwright, and theater book publisher. She is s a graduate
of Wesleyan University.