About the Play:

The Rimers of Eldritch has long been a favourite of acting teachers for female/male scenes.

The Rimers of Eldritch is a highly imaginative and affecting full-length drama by Lanford Wilson. In the small Middle Western town of Eldritch, a murder has taken place. As the play revolves in circular fashion around this event, the dark motives of many seemingly innocent townspeople are revealed and an unexpected hero emerges. Especially recommended for school and contest use.

The Rimers of Eldritch explores the dark side of morality in a church-going rural Missouri town that becomes the site of a shocking crime. As Martin Gottfried comments, "It is a simple one. A mystery, really. A man has been murdered. The mystery is, who he is, who murdered him and what were the circumstances? And to solve it, Wilson looks at the outsides and insides of his tiny, Middle Western town. He looks at a middle-aged woman who falls in love with the young man who comes to work in her cafe. He looks at a coarse, nasty woman mistreating her senile mother, who is obsessed with visions of Eldritch being evil and headed for blood-spilling. He looks at a tender relationship between a young man and a dreamy, crippled girl. But Wilson sees far more than this. He is grasping the very fabric of Bible Belt America, with its catchword morality ('virgin,' 'God-fearing') and its capability for the vicious. He senses the rhythm of its life and the cruelty it can impose. He understands the speech patterns of its loveless gossips, its sex-hungry boys, its compassionless preachers, its car-conscious blondes." Part murder mystery and part examination of mid-western American life. Arraying his characters on a series of platforms with everyone on stage throughout the play, the author employs a unique contrapuntal technique to blend together the various people and bits of action into a striking mosaic, which captures, with eloquence and insight, the very heart and meaning of the small town. In the end his portrait of Eldritch is full length, and the truth of its revelations will be pondered long after the stage lights have dimmed and the play has ended.

The Rimers of Eldritch premiered in 1966 on a set of simple platforms at off-off-Broadway's famed La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club (E.T.C.). It transferred to a commercial run Off-Broadway at the Cherry Lane Theatre in 1967, where it was hailed by the critics for its introduction of a new and remarkably talented playwright. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and is regularly performed in regional repertory, middle school, high school, college, and community theatre productions.

Cast: 10 female, 7 male

What people say:

"…this reviewer liked Rimers for its fluidity, for its language, for its almost musical sense of pattern ." — New York Times

"…it is of great effect, washed throughout with poetry and vibrant with individual style." — Women's Wear Daily

About the Playwright:

Lanford Wilson (1937-2011) was one of the most distinguished American playwrights of the late 20th century. He was instrumental in drawing attention to Off-Off Broadway, where his first works were staged in the mid-1960s. He was also among the first playwrights to move from that milieu to renown on wider stages, ascending to Off Broadway, and then to Broadway, within a decade of his arrival in New York. His work has also long been a staple of regional theaters throughout the United States. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1980, was elected in 2001 to the Theater Hall of Fame, and in 2004 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.