THE STORY: Endecott and the Red Cross. The seventeenth-century Massachusetts settlement of Merrymount, led by Thomas Morton, is a place of easygoing frivolity, which makes it a thorn in the side of its Puritan neighbors. During the wild doings of the May Day celebration Mr. Blackstone, emissary of the English archbishop, attempts to impose some decorum on the unbridled colonists, but he is rebuffed. It is a different story, however, when Governor Endecott arrives at the head of his Puritan troops to punish the settlement for selling guns and liquor to the Indians. Being a reasonable man, Endecott allows Morton and Blackstone to state the case for their defense, and he resists the vindictive urgings of the zealous Elder Palfrey to bring quick and violent retribution to all. But his love of religious and civil liberty and his knowledge of English corruption ultimately bid him take action against a spreading blight. Summoning his resolve, he condemns the settlers to severe punishment and decrees that their houses be burned—striking a blow for freedom and honor destined, in time, to be echoed throughout the forming nation. (7 men, 1 woman.)
My Kinsman, Major Molineux. Young Robin and his brother arrive in Boston from their frontier home in Deerfield to seek out their illustrious uncle, Major Molineux, a man of wealth and position and an avowed Royalist. In their backwoods innocence they are unaware of the ferment which as seized the people of Boston, and they are confused by the oblique and taunting replies which greet their request for information on their uncle. They accost, among others, a barber, a tavern keeper, a clergyman, a prostitute, and a man in a grotesque mask,—half red, half white—but all to no avail. When they do find the major's house, the Union Jack has been ripped down and replaced by the Rattlesnake flag, and the major is nowhere to be found. Then their uncle is dragged, torn and bleeding before them, a fallen man now the prisoner of those he dominated. He dies, and the boys' hopes for advancement would seem to expire with him. But the spirit of freedom has gripped them too, and they resolve to stay in Boston to fight for a new life which could bring greater rewards those their uncle might have provided. (12 men, 1 boy, 1 girl.)
Benito Cereno. As commented on by Richard Watts, Jr.: "… it all begins quietly in a vein of somewhat satirical comedy. An American sailing vessel has come upon a Spanish Ship in trouble. The captain wants to be of help to the ship on which all the officers but one have died, apparently of the plague. Captain Delano and Mate Perkins are pretty lofty, though, about the incompetence of the Spaniards, and they discuss it scornfully, noting the superiority of liberty-loving Americans. The captain is also urbanely tolerant of slavery. On the slave ship, they encounter a touching sight, despite the horrors of the plague. The ailing Spaniard in command is being tenderly cared for by a gentle and loyal slave. But things aren't what they seem, though it is against the rules of reviewing a suspense drama, I fear, to suggest that this sweet Uncle Tom will bear watching. Anyway, it all ends in an uproar of gunplay and slaughter that the most experienced expert in frank melodrama could well envy." (6 men.)
