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From the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of
Topdog/Underdog comes a play about race and friendship in a deeply flawed society.
About the author
In 2002,
Suzan-Lori Parks became the first African-American woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for her play
Topdog/Underdog. Her other plays include
Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3), In the Blood, Venus, The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World, Fucking A, Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom and
The America Play. In 2007, her
365 Days/365 Plays was produced at more than seven hundred theaters worldwide. Ms. Parks is a MacArthur Fellow and Master Writer Chair at The Public Theater. In 2018, she was awarded the Windham-Campbell Prize for Drama.
Summary
Leo, Misha, Ralph, and Dawn are old friends. The two couples have a lot in common—good educations, progressive politics, a taste for culture. But when a racially motivated incident with the cops leaves Leo shaken, he decides he must take extreme measures in order to survive. Suzan-Lori Parks’ newest work reveals how easily fissures can form in the social contracts we build with one another when confronted with difficult questions about race and identity.
Additional text
Parks's dislocating stage devices, stark but poetic language and fiercely idiosyncratic images transform her work into something haunting and marvelous.
