GLYPH
“This slave census is the Book of Life for those that have gone before me.”
Full-Length Tragi-Thriller, no Intermission
1M, 3W
Ezekiel Pomeroy, an impossibly ancient and disease-riddled former slave master, is finally dying after wielding over 300 years of tyranny on the Canaan Hall plantation. As one of the largest slave owners in the South, his insatiable evil and great violence has wrecked havoc, particularly among his African-American descendants. Lucy, the last of those descendants, is determined to confront him before he takes his last breath. She forces him to look at the damage he has caused that has driven their family to the brink of extinction. As the deathwatch continues, we uncover the dark history that threatens not only to rip the family apart, but the community as well.
Part tragedy, part psychological thriller, this play is panoramic in scope exploring such themes as eugenics, medical experiments on slaves by the father of gynecology, Marion Sims, and Margaret Sanger's Negro Project. It tackles the legacy that slavery has left across the land and its long-lasting affects not just on a family but on a community and how it has touched the whole saga of a people.
OF NOTE
Recipient of a Jerome Emerging Artist Residency at Tofte Lake Center in 2010
WORKSHOP PRODUCTION
July 2011
Workhaus Collective, Minneapolis MN
directed by Marion McClinton