PLAYS

& Production History

PRODIGAL

Play In Progress

“Who Cares?: The Washington-Sarajevo Talks”
and “Kate and Kafka.”

WHO CARES?
THE WASHINGTON-SARAJEVO TALKS

A universal drama about the Sarajevos of the world—warfare in the streets and on TV—dramatized in the bond forged over the phone between “Vlado,” under fire by former friends, and “Rhonda,” a citizen of the American superpower moved by the televised carnage to reach out. A drama about the saving power of human contact and normalcy in chaos.

From the play:
Rhonda: I only know if everyone could see each other as you and I do, throats could not be slit.

KATE AND KAFKA

Katharine Hepburn the Life Force meets Franz Kafka the Death Force and tries to change his attitude. Set in an end-of-the-world setting, the Sanatorium Ultime, amid biological warfare.

From the play:
Franz: If you wanted to, Katharine of Arrogance, you could be as sick as the rest of the human race.
Kate: Oh boy, is this place big enough for the both of us? Mr. Kafka: Do you live to live or do you live to die?
Franz: We’re forever stumbling through unfinished suicides, give it up!
Kate: Your attitude offends me in the extreme. Leave this table!

EXCESS ON THEIR HANDS

A dramatic comedy about the male preference for younger women, and about how one older woman deals with that, also how people at midlife recover their path—played out with alter-egos.

The alter-egos include: For “Jessica” (the central female character)—“Blue,” her inner blues singer; “Val,” her inner Valkyrie; Miss Congeniality; Emily Dickinson; Mother; and Child. For “Jack” (the central male character)—“Thug”; his inner best self, Ralph Waldo Emerson; Father; and Child. In final scene, a Waiter.

From the play:
Jessica: QUIET! You know, some people have a still, small voice inside. One voice. Still, and small.
Val: How can a voice be still….?
Blue: And why be small? (To VAL) We agree?
Jessica: But: I have the Metropolitan Opera crossed with a goddam jazz session!
Mother: Dear, the profanity.
Emily Dickinson: It fits precisely the World within.
Jessica: Yes, but: It’s soooo discordant in here.

THE ALTITUDE OF VIRTUE

A drama about a wife, Faith, who tries to prevent her husband from committing a crime—he is founder of a waste management company and feels forced to dump hazardous waste across the border in Mexico. In her quest to recruit allies to go up against her charismatic husband Will, she is obstructed on all sides—by her son who’s heir to the company, her daughter who is Daddy’s girl, her mother who stood by her doctor father in some Medicare fraud, and the company vice-president’s wife who is most gung-ho of all—all who argue that Will knows what he is doing. Thus do “good” people allow a crime to go forward.

From the play:
Mother: Dear, men do what they want. It doesn’t matter what we say.
Faith: Women face Judgment Day, too, Mother….

 

 Imagery designed by Russ Holster, Gig Harbor.

Setting the stage for social catharsis