The House of Correction
Description
A black comedy touched with absurdity and a philosophical bent that puts the torch to middle-class complacency.
Production Info
Full Length Dark Comedy (about 105 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
Press Quotes
“… Lock’s ideas lend tangy new flavor to an old form … HOUSE OF CORRECTION is first, last and always a superior mystery-comedy-thriller … He has written a fast moving, absurdist piece of neo-realistic suspense of the sort that works best only in the theater. It is a tribute to his talent …” —Sylvie Drake, Los Angeles Times
“… Norman Lock’s treatment of the evils of psychotic schizophrenia versus the even more ugly aspects of pretentious armchair liberalism is nothing short of hilarious in this outing. It’s offbeat and loony with a sitcom flare …” —Teen., Daily Variety
“… it’s very funny, and very scary like a nightmare that wakes you up shaking, forcing you to reassess your life … Lock’s weapon is words and he uses them well … his imagery is vivid, his dramatic momentum strong …” —Tom Jacobs, L.A. Life
“This is a delightfully dark, beautifully acted suspense comedy … a script that balances outrageous farce and human tragedy … It is Lock’s gift for concocting eccentric characters and devilishly comic situations that propels the play.” —Downtown News (Los Angeles)
“This rollercoaster of a play may well turn out to be one of the most significant new plays at this year’s Fringe … a gripping, individualistic piece.” —The Stage (Edinburgh)
“We are kept on the edge of our seats as events move toward a climax beyond expectation … makes us laugh our way up a mountain of suspense.” —The Scotsman
“HOUSE OF CORRECTION moves from sitcom to Hitchcock, mingling the two so neatly that sometimes you don’t know which you’re watching.” —Naked (Edinburgh)
“The play remains ingenious in identifying those essential American tenets and dragging them screaming and skewed to their conclusion.” —The Guardian (Edinburgh)
“… entertaining but rigorous in its approach to important moral issues … This is the first chance for British audiences to see the ‘absurdist comedy-thriller’ that has played across America, but the questions it raises are bound to be relevant here as they are across the Atlantic.” —Glasgow and Edinburgh Events Guide
Author
Norman LockNorman Lock has written novels, short fiction, and poetry as well as stage plays, dramas for German radio, a film for The American Film Institute, and scenarios for video-art installations. His plays have been produced in the U.S., Germany, at the Edinburgh Theatre Festival, in Turkey, and Poland. His work has been translated into Dutch, German, Spanish, Turkish, Polish, Greek, and Japanese. He received the Aga Kahn Prize, given by The Paris Review, the Literary Fiction Prize, given by The Dactyl Foundation of the Arts & Humanities, fellowships from the New Jersey Council on the Arts, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and from the National Endowment for the Arts.The play was recently seen in Athens, as well as in Major theaters in Istanbul and Warsaw. Lock’s recent books of fiction published by Bellevue Literary Press are American Meteor (2015), The Boy in His Winter (2014), and Love Among the Particles (2013). American Meteor and The Boy in His Winter were also produced as audio books by Blackstone Audio. Norman lives in Aberdeen, New Jersey, with his wife, Helen.
Book Information
| Publisher | BPPI |
|---|---|
| Publication Date | 10/1/1988 |
| Pages | 84 |
| ISBN | 9780881450613 |
Special Notes
Originally produced by New Playwrights Theater, Ashland OR
by special arrangement with Broadway Play Publishing Inc, NYC
www.broadwayplaypublishing.com