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1993 Enter the Night
Synopsis
Tressa, a young nurse of the dying, reunites her long-time friends in her loft apartment. Arriving at the apartment are Jack, a young gay playwright, and Paula, a middle-aged straight woman who has heart problems and has come to the city to have a specialist heart check. She is already seriously ill and also has monetary problems which make her farm financially insecure. Jack, who does not have Aids, cannot accept Tressa's reasurances about this and instead torments himself with the conviction that he infected his now dead partner. To achieve calm, to perhaps reach an Eastern acceptance of suffering, Tressa chooses to dress as an Asian man and with Jack taking the role of Lillian Gish as a young girl seeking sanctuary, they movingly re-enact the girl's dying from the silent film Broken Blossoms. Eastern mysticism is present too when part of the sound track of Lost Horizon is heard. Tressa and Jack's ritual, which is accidentally witnessed by Paula who recognises its acceptance of pain and suffering, enables art, death, and friendship to combine. Jack pushes this combination into their real lives when he hurtles away from them into the night, to return having been brutalised in the street and is held pieta-like by the women as the play closes.
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Originally called Dreams, this was directed by Fornes for its 16th April 1993 world premiere performances by the commisioning Theatre Zero, New City Theatre, Seattle, Washington. New City Theatre had staged Fefu and Her Friends in 1990. It was written during Fornes' tenure of a Lila Wallace Literary Fellowship.
Cast:
Tressa - Mary Ewald
Paula - Patricia Mattick
Jack - Brian Faker
Costume Design - Rose Pedelton
Lighting Design - Anne Militello
Set Design - Donald Eastman.
It was also directed by Fornes the following year at Dallas Theatre Centre, Dallas, Texas as part of the Big D Festival of the Unexpected.
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