THE STORY: As the New York Post describes: “Three giant colorfully styled dolls, with actors within: a motel landlady on Route 666 and the guy and the blonde, more or less out of In Cold Blood, who have taken a room there for the night. Nobody speaks except the landlady, and she in the excellent recorded Great Plains voice of Ruth White. While the landlady spiels fifteen minutes of platitudes about the hooked rugs and self-flushing toilets and other features of her motel, guy doll and blond doll crawl and draw graffiti on doors and walls and rip or smash everything in sight…” to the tune of a booming rock 'n roll number, leading up to a driving, galvanizing finish. And a finish, furthermore, which not only shocks but gives pause. In a real sense we are the mindless dolls, and their actions reflect the ugly impulses that lurk in all of us—finding an outlet in actions that can only leave us feeling ashamed and concerned, and aware of the aching emptiness at the heart of our modern way of life. (3 men or 3 women in “doll” masks and bodies; offstage voice).
Winner of the Vernon Rice Award.
The third of three plays comprising
America Hurrah, and a shattering excursion into the Theater of the Absurd. The action in this instance is set in a modern, antiseptically stark motel, and underscores the chilling irony of our mindless penchant for defacing and destroying the very “advantages” which affluence and technology have brought us.
“…a valid comment and an excoriating one.” —Newsday (NY).
“He combines candid observation, uncanny perception and a spirited sense of theater to make us acutely aware of ourselves.” —New York World Journal Tribune.
“…(a) trip through an air-conditioned blightmare towards an icy emptiness at the core of American life.” —Time Magazine.
