Assassins - A Play

By Joseph K. Adams

A one act, domestic drama by playwright Joseph K. Adams. A slice of the American family in the 1990s. The play was premiered in October, 1982 at the Deja Vu in Hollywood, CA and has been produced around the country since then.

Performance license is available through the author.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joe Adams
• Release date: Aug 8, 2013
• ISBN: 9781497781153

Book preview

Oak and Lotus Publications

Raleigh, North Carolina

Theater is ancient and will always be new.

FORWARD

ASSASSINS was my most personal play, but it is not documentation of my family. It has also been expanded as a two act form titled FEAR OF LIGHT, but the original format and title seem to serve the work the best.

While preparing this edition manuscript I began to see patterns in my work.

There is food. Always there is food.

There are absent children.In LIVING IN THE HOUSE OF ANGELS Antoinette never appears. In ASSASSINS Paulie is never on stage. In FEVER Alma is the child returning.

The characters deal with loss, real or imagined. Illusion or things. Sra. Lopez loses here illusions of he late husband, in FEVER and in LIVING IN THE HOUSE OF ANGELS. Stan never learns how to capture enough of his brother to lose him. In ASSASSINS, Gary loses the illusion of his family, Lonnie tries to rebuild what he has lost and Karen has lost her daddy, her husband and loses her brother. In MAMA LAW Michael loses everything.

There is the passage from one place to another. Michael from MAMA LAW has returned from a trip. In FEVER the characters are trying to go anywhere but where they are. LIVING IN THE HOUSE OF ANGELS they are on the journey none of us can avoid - death.

And in ASSASSINS, Gary seems to live on the road. Both of my novels (SONG OF ORPHANS and CLIMBING THE SPIRAL MOUNTAIN both of which will appear later this year) the story revolves around a journey to find something to fix the characters lives.

I cut my teeth in radio drama, and the piece of which I remain the proudest, CHAPEL PERILOUS, is based on an hallucinated journey in the mind of a dying man. And there is food and missing people in that work as well.

None of this was planned. Sharing food, losing things and people, and taking important journeys seem to be good metaphors for the task of going on with life.

In Indian religion, this lie is maya - illusion. But not the illusion of a full lie, but the lie of theater. In theater, everything is playing a part. The right string of words, the right gesture, the right phrase of music in the voice and position of face and body can communicate volumes to the audience. When the set and the light and the actors and the words come together, the audience is given an experience to be shared.

I’m happy to say that I have seen that moment in the rooms where my plays have been performed. I have another play in me, if I live long enough to write it.

Many thanks to the original cast and production people from the original Hollywood production, and the later productions around the country I have been invited to attend.

Joseph K. Adams

Raleigh, NC, June 2013

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Assassins

A One Act Play in Three Scenes

By Joseph K. Adams

Copyright © 1982, 1988 and 2013 by the Author

All Rights Reserved.

FEAR OF LIGHT premiered as ASSASSINS April 7, 1982 at the Déja Vu in Hollywood, California under the direction of the author as "Joseph K. Adams. The original cast included:

Karen - Sheryl Sutter

Gary - Gary Alan Poe

Linda - Holgie Forrester

Ede - Arlene Jaron

Lonnie - Gregg A. Roebuck

Stage Manager - Vivian