Sincerity Forever
Description
Two profane aliens have landed in the Southern town of Hillsbottom. Is God watching? Does he care? Is God a He? Mac Wellman addresses these and other questions in this Obie Award–winning play that skewers the social malignancy of ignorance.
Production Info
Full Length Comedy (about 70 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
Press Quotes
In 2003, The Village Voice gave a Lifetime Achievement Award to Mac Wellman: “… [he] has long situated himself on the frontier of new forms. He’s not only an experimental dramatist of the first rank, but also an eloquent champion of the avant-garde … Like Beckett’s characters, the figures in his work inhabit both a purely theatrical world and a space that will not let you forget the social realities compounding the existential mystery.”
“In SINCERITY FOREVER, Mac Wellman’s savage comedy about everyday lunacies in America, two adolescent girls in a dirt-poor Southern town calmly accept the order of the universe. God must have a plan, says one, or why else would He keep both of them ‘ignorant forever in absolute sincerity.’ Like everyone else in Hillsbottom, the two are wearing Ku Klux Klan costumes. They are blissful in their brainlessness, confessing they cannot tell good art from bad art and do not know why junk bonds are junky. The conversation dwells on important matters like boyfriends rather than on child abuse or the plutonium-poisoned water that is killing their community. Mr Wellman’s view of contemporary society is dire but not doleful. In his headlong search for social and political commentary, he never neglects his comical instincts, starting with the fact that the play is dedicated to Jesse Helms … The framework of the play is fantasy. A ‘mystic furball’ has infected Hillsbottom. What, you may ask, are furballs? They are foul-mouthed aliens that look like partly plucked chickens. The two who have landed (or have emerged from Hell) are played in full comic plumage … Because of the play’s graphic language and its approach to piety, some theatergoers may find SINCERITY FOREVER offensive, a fact that should please the playwright. Mr Wellman does not play anything safe as he does his danse macabre far out on the cutting edge.” —Mel Gussow, The New York Times
Author
Mac WellmanMac Wellman's recent work includes 3 2's; or AFAR at Dixon Place in October 2011, THE DIFFICULTY OF CROSSING A FIELD (with composer David Lang) at Montclair in the fall of 2006 (and elsewhere more recently), and 1965 UU for performer Paul Lazar, and directed by Stephen Mellor at the Chocolate Factory in the fall of 2008. He has received numerous honors, including NEA, Guggenheim, and Foundation of Contemporary Arts fellowships. In 2003 he received his third Obie, for lifetime Achievement. In 2006 his third novel, Q's Q, was published by Green Integer, and in 2008 a volume of stories, A Chronicle of the Madness of Small Worlds, was published by Trip Street Press as well as a new collection of plays The Difficulty of Crossing a Field from Minnesota Press. His books of poetry include Miniature (2002), Strange Elegies (2006), Split the Stick (2012) from Roof Books, and Left Glove (2011), from Solid Objects Press. His novel Linda Perdido won the 2011 FC2 Catherine Doctorow Prize for Innovative Fiction. He is Distinguished Professor of Playwriting at Brooklyn College.
Book Information
| Publisher | BPPI |
|---|---|
| Publication Date | 12/1/2005 |
| Pages | 60 |
| ISBN | 9780881452747 |
Special Notes
Originally produced by The Berkshire Theater Festivaland then in New York by House Frau Inc
by special arrangement with Broadway Play Publishing Inc, NYC
www.broadwayplaypublishing.com