Synopsis
The Road to the Graveyard
Published by Dramatists Play Service
2 Male 3 Female
But Sonny, indecisive as always, is fearful of striking out on his own and is resigned, instead, to settling for marriage with an older woman deemed unsuitable by the family
In a series of subtle, deeply affecting scenes, we come to learn the elements of India's disaffection; her concern for her failing parents; her impatience with her gossipy lifelong friend and fellow spinster, Lyda, whose existence has become as sterile as her own; and her disappointment with the feckless Sonny, who seems unable to take hold of his own destiny, much less assume the responsibility for the fate of others
In the end the play is a moving study of loss and desperation, and of decent, well-intentioned people who must stand by helplessly while a way of life is forfeited to a changing order which they are unable to fully comprehend or accommodate
A haunting, eloquent short play which captures the anguish and ennui of a Texas family facing the inexorable disintegration of their way of life which is soon to be lost completely in the coming turmoil of World War II
Successfully produced by New York's celebrated Ensemble Studio Theatre, as part of its one-act play festival, Marathon '85
"In roughly a half-hour, he surveys the tragic ruins of a household even as he looks back, with more anger than nostalgia at a world whose idyllic glow belies all manner of unacknowledged neuroses and sexual and economic injustices" ~ NY Times
"The play, like so many of Mr Foote's plays and movies, is set in a small Texas town, in the living room of a family on the very brink of collapse, their decorum the thinnest camouflage for desperation" ~ The New Yorker