The Red Letter Plays [Paperback]

In the Bloodis an extraordinary new play…It is truly harrowing…we cannot turn away, and we do not want to. The play strikes us as Hawthorne claimed his first glimpse of the scarlet letter struck him, with a sensation not altogether physical yet almost so, as of a burning heat, as if the letter were not of red cloth but of red-hot iron.’ —Margo Jefferson,The New York Times

The playwright who has burst through every known convention to invent a new theatrical language, like a jive Samuel Beckett, while exploding American cultural myths and stereotypes along the way [John Heilpern,New York ObserverandVogue], has written two haunting riffs on Hawthorne’sThe Scarlett Letter: In the BloodandFucking A.

Hester La Negrita ofIn the Bloodis an unapologetic mother of five illegitimate children— my treasures, my five joys —who practices writing the alphabet to help herself one day get a leg up. The letter A is as far as she gets. Hester Smith ofFucking Aworks the only job available—abortionist to the lower class, in order to save for a reunion picnic with her imprisoned son. Her branded A bleeds afresh every time a patient comes to see her.

These are two mature, beautifully crafted, inventive and poetic plays by one of the most unique voices writing for the stage today.

Suzan Lori-Parksis also the author ofThe America Play and Other WorksandVenus, both published by TCG. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

One of the contemporary American theater's most innovative wordsmiths. Her plays include: Topdog/Underdog (2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama), In the Blood (2000 Pulitzer-nominee), Fucking A, Venus (OBIE Award), The America Play and Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom (OBIE Award, Best New American Play). She is also a screenwriter, novelist, and MacArthur Genius grantee.

* In the Blood prló&