the little death

In 1880's New Orleans, beautiful Hesper Darnelle enters a dangerous liaison with her guardian, Professor Meredith, then a flirtation with a young man, Alan Corbay. To protect his interest in Hesper, Meredith invites her worldly cousin Vara to join the household as his ward's companion.

Vara glides among the other characters like Iago in a bustle, leaving disaster in her wake. And Hesper must find a way to break with Meredith, Alan, and Vara to save herself.

“The story of Oh! . . . the mood of old New Orleans, but the spirit of the play, centered as it is on the experience of women, is modern; at its best, The Little Death transcends romantic intrigue to sharply explore double sexual standards and the ‘limitations’ that women even today must struggle against.” Houston Press

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Two sisters haunted by the past, one man haunted by desire, gather in a house possessed by the familiar.

There’s something unsettling under the bed. Elinor wants it out, Cissie wants it hidden, and Sean would rather concentrate on possibilities on top of the bed. As Elinor pulls old possessions and dusty objects from under the bed, these become props for improvisations among Elinor, Cissie, and Sean as the three of them maneuver around one another—provoking or tantalizing, wary of touch and entanglements—playing ever closer to what haunts them.

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Introduce young audiences to King Lear with this captivating romance. No, the king doesn't appear, but the plot is similar because Shakespeare and Rosemary Poole-Carter both adapted their scripts from the ancient legend about the foolish old monarch and his three daughters.

The "king" in this drama is Ole Daddy, who rules his plantation from his wicker chair on the veranda. Deciding it's time to turn the land over to his daughters, he asks each to tell him how much she loves him. After the elder two, Ruby and Garnet, gush with false sentiment, the youngest, Candra, falters not knowing how to express her honest feelings of filial love. Her answer: "I love you more than biscuits love butter."

Misunderstanding her devotion, Ole Daddy gives his plantation to Ruby and Garnet, who promptly turn Candra out into the swamps. And before long they turn Ole Daddy out, too. Soon Candra meets a "magic woman" who gives her a cloak covered in Spanish moss--the Mossy Cape--and magical things happen.

The story blends the King Lear legend with the Cinderella story to create a happy ending for Candra, her Ole Daddy, and her young suitor Preston, who falls in love with her at a ball.

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