Synopsis
The Brick and the Rose - a Collage for Voices
Published by Dramatists Play Service
Large Mixed Cast
An expressionistic reading, in which ten actors, portraying forty-seven characters, are seated on stools behind music stands
A powerful and compelling drama requiring no scenery - the entire action takes place in front of back drops
It employs a collage of voices to tell the kaleidoscopic drama of Tommy from the moment of his birth in a charity hospital until his tragic death
In an effort to find something besides "hardness and hitting out, and twisted people all afraid", Tommy turns to narcotics, and thus creates his own world
A world where he isn't constantly gnawed by an acute awareness of the meaninglessness of what is going on around him
He meets Alice, in whom he sees his life-long search for beauty - the rose behind the hard brick city
He knows that he has only touched this beauty for an instant, and he sees it moving farther away from him
One-act