Lu Ann Hampton Laverty Oberlander
THE STORY: The place is Bradleyville, a small town in West Texas, where Lu Ann Hampton, seventeen and a high school cheerleader, dreams of far-off places, but settles for marriage with a friend of her Korean War veteran brother. In the following act, ten years later, now divorced and working as a “beauty technician,” Lu Ann meets and marries Corky Oberlander, only to lose him in a fatal auto accident. Then, a decade later again, we find Lu Ann still in Bradleyville, with her teenaged daughter, her now alcoholic brother, and a mother who has been enfeebled by a stroke. In a moving scene she is visited by her high school sweetheart, who has become a successful preacher, and as they review the past it becomes eloquently clear that Lu Ann’s life has come full circle—with her hopes and dreams sacrificed to the realities of everyday life, and with only her resolute spirit to sustain her towards the inevitable grayness of the future.
One of the three independent plays comprising the phenomenally successful A Texas Trilogy, this poignant, revealing and frequently hilarious play offers a touching—and telling—portrait of a girl (and then woman) trapped in the backwater of a small Texas town.
“…the most interesting American playwright to emerge since Tennessee Williams.” —The New York Times.
“Preston Jones is clearly and demonstrably a great American playwright…” —The Hollywood Reporter.
“Beat the drums and ring the bells. A major new dramatist has arrived on the Broadway scene.” —The Bergen Record (NJ).
