The Collected Plays of Bernard Pomerance

Book excerpt: In this collection of four plays, Tony Award winner Bernard Pomerance demonstrates once again that he is a writer unafraid to address, in the words of The New York Times, "challenging -- and very human -- historical subjects." In his fiction and plays, from The Elephant Man to Melons, Pomerance explores greed, despair, darkness, redemption, and most of all the human impulse to try to make sense of the world we live in. Superhighway presents the relatives of a woman ill with cancer who are unable to cope with her death. The protagonist of Quantrill in Lawrence, set during the Civil War, leads the townspeople of Lawrence into chaos. In Melons, an Apache chief and a retired army major reprise the Indian wars and embody, respectively, an imperiled traditional way of life and the century just dawning. Hands of Light is a contemporary exploration of the story of King Midas and an allegory for greed's power to disrupt the world's natural balance.