The Red Letter Plays

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 Observer and Vogue], has written two haunting riffs on Hawthorne's The Scarlett Letter: In the Blood and Fucking A.

Hester La Negrita of In the Blood is 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 of Fucking A works 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 Parks's extraordinary new play, In the Blood, is about the way we live now, and it is truly towering. Ms. Parks's writing has grown leaner and hungrier, and you will leave this play feeling pity and terror. We cannot turn away, and we do not want to, and because it is a work of art, you will leave thrilled, even comforted, by its mastery." Margo Jefferson, The New York Times

"Like In the Blood, Fucking A comes as close to classical tragedy as anything in the contemporary theatre. Fucking A's Hester calls to mind Mother Courage and Medea, but she has a force and a pathos all her own." Lawson Taitte, Dallas Morning News

"In the Blood is an electrifying drama. The fascinating thing about Parks is the steady power of her language and imagery. She is a relentlessly inventive phrasemaker, and the speech here is a graceful amalgam of street talk and learned prose. The play is gritty, yet full of imaginative flourishes. The language keeps pricking your ears." Nelson Pressley, The Washington Post

"In the Bloodis an extraordinary new playIt is truly harrowingwe 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 Observerand Vogue]," has written two haunting riffs on Hawthorne's The Scarlett Letter: In the Bloodand Fucking A.

Hester La Negrita of In 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 of Fucking 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 of The America Play and Other Worksand Venus, both published by TCG. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

In the early 1980s Suzan-Lori Parks took a writing class with James Baldwin and, at his suggestion, began writing plays. These plays include Venus (1996 OBIE Award), The America Play, The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World, Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom (1990 OBIE Award, Best New American Play), Fucking A, In the Blood (2000 Pulitzer Prize nominee), and her latest, Topdog/Underdog (2002 Pulitzer Prize winner for Best Drama). Her first film, Girl 6, was directed by Spike Lee. She has also written screenplays for Jodie Foster and Danny Glover. She was recently included in Time magazine's "Time 100: The Next Wave of Innovators." Ms. Parks runs the A.S.K. Theater Projects Writing for Performance Program at California Institute of the Arts. Currently she is working on a new play and her first novel.

In the Blood
Fucking A