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By the Waters of Babylon

"Powerful writing...Personal and political, self-castigating, rueful, yearning is delivered faultlessly...with quiet tremors of humor, regret and anger."

Seattle Times

More information

Description

  • Full Length Play
  • Drama
  • 120 minutes

  • Target Audience: Adult
  • Set Requirements: Exterior Set, Interior Set
  • Cautions: Strong Language, Mild Adult Themes

  • Performance Group:
  • Community Theatre
On a hot afternoon in Austin, Texas, the widowed Catherine hires Arturo, a Cuban writer turned gardener, to tame her overgrown backyard. What begins as a cordial interaction between employer and employee quickly turns into a cautiously intimate encounter between two exiles freighted by pasts they cannot forget.

Over the course of several hours Catherine and Arturo swap lies and tell stories. Laugh. Argue politics and music. Make Mojitos and get a little drunk. Fight and make up. And together -- warily, clumsily -- they begin to dance the oldest dance in the world.
REVIEWS:

"Powerful writing... Personal and political, self-castigating, rueful, yearning is delivered faultlessly... with quiet tremors of humor, regret and anger."

Seattle Times

"Music is the condition to which Schenkkan's play frequently aspires... His script weaves together a diversity of discourses: rambling small talk, snappy one-liners, confessional monologues, and those rapturous poetic flights."

Crosscut

"There's delicate poetical imagery in Robert Schenkkan's 2005 drama about the meeting of and fleeting romance between two exiles in an Austin suburb."

LA Weekly

"...At its heart, Schenkkan's tale of a damaged man and woman struggling to master their demons, each finding salvation in the other, is poignant and uplifting."

Orange County Register

Characters

  • Casting: 1M, 1F

Available Material

Name Price
By the Waters of Babylon Script Order Now

On a hot afternoon in Austin, Texas, the widowed Catherine hires Arturo, a Cuban writer turned gardener, to tame her overgrown backyard. What begins as a cordial interaction between employer and employee quickly turns into a cautiously intimate encounter between two exiles freighted by pasts they cannot forget. Over the course of several hours Catherine and Arturo swap lies and tell stories. Laugh. Argue politics and music. Make Mojitos and get a little drunk. Fight and make up. And together -- warily, clumsily -- they begin to dance the oldest dance in the world.

$24.95

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