The House That Will Not Stand

Description

You may be the wealthiest colored woman in New Orleans, but you built this house on sand, lies and dead bodies. New Orleans, 1836. Following an era of French colonial rule and relative racial acceptance, Louisiana's 'free people of color' are prospering. Beatrice, a free woman of colour, has become one of the city's wealthiest women through her relationship with a rich white man. However, when her lover mysteriously dies, Beatrice imposes a six-month period of mourning on herself and her three daughters. But, as the summer heat intensifies, the foundations of freedom she has built for herself and their three unwed daughters begin to crumble. Society is changing, racial divides are growing and, as the members of the household turn on each other in their fight for survival, it could cost them everything. A bewitching new drama of desire, jealousy, murder and voodoo, The House That Will Not Stand received its world premiere at Berkeley Rep, US, in January 2014, and was subsequently produced at the Tricycle Theatre, London, on 9 October 2014. This edition features an introduction by Professor Ayanna Thompson, Columbian College of Arts and Sciences.

Marcus Gardley is a poet-playwright who was awarded the 2011 PEN/Laura Pels award for Mid-Career Playwright. His most recent play, Every Tongue Confess, premiered at Arena Stage, Washington. His musical, On The Levee, premiered at LCT3/Lincoln Center Theater and was nominated for 11 Audelco Awards including outstanding playwright. His play, And Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi, was produced at The Cutting Ball Theater, San Francisco, and received the SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award nomination for outstanding new play. It is published in The Methuen Drama Book of Post-Black Plays.

Marcus Gardley's play is a lyrical vision of rivalry, jealousy and racial prejudice. Set in New Orleans in the 1830s, it strikingly depicts passion and repression in a style that is sometimes reminiscent of Federico Garcia Lorca's great The House of Bernarda Alba yet also affords fresh insight into a largely unfamiliar historical period. * Evening Standard * For all of Gardley's palpable debt to Lorca, his play has a historical fascination and exuberant theatricality all its own. [...] It's a rich mix, but Gardley vividly captures the sense of a house not only divided against itself but also caught up in a war of different traditions. * Guardian * The House That Will Not Stand . . . opens a fascinating window on to the largely forgotten phenomenon of placage . . . * The Times * Gardley is an acclaimed poet as well as a playwright, and his script . . . is shot through with a dreamy lyricism. At times, the effect is startlingly beautiful . . . * Daily Telegraph *