Antigua and Barbuda / All works
Theatre
The Offering
Gus Edwards · 1977
Synopsis
In a shabby basement on New York's West Side, Bob Tyrone, an ageing Black man who lives on welfare and spends his days in front of the television, shares his life with Princess, his young wife. One evening Martin arrives, a former associate who has become prosperous as a hired killer, with his white girlfriend, Ginny; he has come to offer Tyrone a large sum of money. The visit turns into a power struggle, made of seduction and domination, in which the old man manoeuvres his two visitors.
Context
A pastor he met in a restaurant introduced him to Douglas Turner Ward of the Negro Ensemble Company, who accepted the play and directed it in 1977, after years of rewriting; the company performed it in repertory with another play by the same author, a first for it. Ward said that the play lay as much in its silences as in its dialogue. It was published in 1978 by Dramatists Play Service.
Who it is for
A short play in English, tense and heavy with unspoken things, built on four characters shut in the same basement.
Prizes and reception
New York critics hailed a remarkable first work and an author to be reckoned with.
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