I went back to the collection from which two very early plays in this blog came, New American Plays 2. It was published in 1992. so I guess they are not that new. This is the first play in this book of four plays that is naturalistic in style. The author is Samuel L. Kelley and the play is Pill Hill. The title refers to a neighborhood in Chicago where the affluent Black people moved when they achieved middle class success and got out of the ghetto.

The play takes place over 10 years. It is structured in three acts, each five years apart. It begins in the late seventies as six African-American steel mill workers meet to play cards and hang out. Not all the steel mill workers are happy. One, Ed, has in fact quit the mill and gone to college in the hopes of becoming a lawyer. He is trying to convince his friend, Joe, to get out of the mill and go to college with him. Both are in their early 20's. There is an older mill worker, Charlie, for whom the mill and its union and stability were his salvation from the cotton fields of Mississippi. The Mill and its changing place in the lives of these men is an important part of this play. From the dead end that Ed believes it to be, to the stepping stone that others see it as, to the pride of place it gave Charlie, the mill hangs over everyone in this play.

There are three other characters: Scott, a former football running back now languishing in the mill; Al, whose wife's demands that they move to the suburbs pushes him to find a better path to the middle class; and Tony who is a born salesman and makes up for his lack of a college degree by selling everyone everything. As a white person I can't say whether this play correctly conveys the banter of real black men, especially from a bygone era. Some of it feels a bit stereo typed but the author is black so I can only assume it is authentic. It's a bit like reading an August Wilson play only it covers a longer period of time.

In each act the characters advance or retreat from their goals. By Act 3 Ed has become the first black lawyer hired by a big downtown law firm, Joe has stagnated but continues to claim that one day he will get himself together and join Ed in his success. Joe has however finally lost his job after numerous run ins with an unseen supervisor, Shep. In the past, the union has helped him to keep his job,but this time with the mill soon to close, he has finally overstayed his welcome. He is now an alcoholic and will soon be evicted from his apartment. Al has become a successful real estate salesman, and Tony a successful car salesman. Charlie after heartbreakingly losing what seemed like a sure promotion in Act 2 has finally retired. Scott has also left the mill and become a drug runner who claims to work int the music business.

The play is a good, solid example of a well made play. It is very well structured in a nice circle, beginning and ending with Ed and Joe alone. There is one long monologue that describes Charlie's ill fated trip to show off his new found mill wealth to his Mississippi relations that is very harrowing and upsetting. It would pack more punch if it were not a too familiar story abuse at the hands of southern police. One wishes this were not so.




The ending is unresolved with Joe's fate hanging and the Ed caught in a moral dilemma about staying at the fancy law firm which wants to use him to legitimize some of its more controversial cases. He wants to quit but his friends want him to remain as a symbol of black accomplishment. This play does a good job covering the Regan years and how the closing of factories and the loss of union jobs wreaked havoc on the working poor, especially in urban neighborhoods like Chicago.

Clever Dick is a parody by Charles Marowitz the maverick director. It is a send up of the Agatha Christie whodunnit. Because of this it is somewhat reminiscent of Tom Stoppard's The Real Inspector Hound. This play, however, has broader social commentary at it's heart. The characters are all described by their social class and there are a lot of references to working class angst and aristocratic privilege. The plot is simple and silly.

Col. Calvarley begins the play by drinking some wine and dying. Right off. No exposition or anything. Bam. Dead. He is soon discovered by his maid. The Police are called in, Inspector Farcus and Sgt. Potts of Scotland Yard. They begin to interogate all of the members and guests of the house. Inspector Farcus is a funny fellow, given a lot of obtuse and amusing lines. Potts, who was raised in the Welsh coal mines has a barely controlled hatred for the upper classes. The members and guests are Lady Calvarley the Col.'s trophy wife, Charles Addley, the Col.s Lawyer, the Col';s Business partner, Alan Horbiss and his wife Bernice. There there are two domestics, Hannah, the cook and Harold the House boy.

There are a lot of pure farce elements here. Everyone is sleeping with someone else: Lady Calvarley with Charles, Harold with Bernice, Hannah reluctantly with Alan. There is much talk of fetishes and outlandish BDSM sex and role playing. I was reminded of the plays of Joe Orton except without the casual homosexuality. There is a lot of doors opening and closing and people almost being caught in embarrassing circumstances. People's secrets are revealed. The Col. comes back to life and then is killed again,

It is quite silly with some genuinely funny word play, The play has a verse Epilogue, kind of like a renaissance play, that attempts to say that, amid all this buffoonery there is, in fact, a moral lurking in there somewhere. The play was written in the mid 80's and reading it now it seems not all that convention shattering. I'm not even sure that it was when it was written. The finer points of the moral are kind of lost on me. By the end of the play no one care about the Col.'s death, Lady Calvarley leaves with Charles for Majorca, Harold reveals he is actually an aristocrat and leaves with Potts, who has embraced his lower social status and has agreed to be Harold's servant,and the Inspector, at the request of Hannah, who likely seems to be the murderer, takes over the Col's estate which has been willed to her. The Horbisss' are strangely not given a final status. They just leave.

The play seems to want to say that we shouldn't be judgmental and allow everyone there lifestyle choices with regard to the sexual realm. I guess that is sort of implied in that the at the end everyone gets something of what they want in partners. I was more confused by what the play suggests as regards social class. It seemed to say that a very few people want to be servants and are happier that way, and that at heart most people want to be rich and idle. It's kind a strange end for a play filled with so much derision of the upper classes.