Watbanaland
By Doug Wright
1998
First Published
3.27
Average Rating
72
Number of Pages
A drama for a cast of 3 men and 3 women. Flo Stillman is a nursery school teacher, desperate to have children of her own. Her husband, Park, a bond trader on Wall Street, refuses to comply. Park carries an overwhelming An affair he had with his secretary, a spirited young woman named Marilyn, already produced a baby. The child, brain-damaged, lies in a hospital incubator, the living manifestation of Park's infidelity to his wife. Now Park is terrified to procreate again, for fear of producing another handicapped infant. Flo, blissfully unaware of her husband's situation, still craves a child. She starts to compulsively adopt Third World children through late-night "infomercials" on TV. Soon, she is a foster mother of some renown. As she becomes increasingly obsessed with her responsibility to nurture the worlds' underprivileged, Flo's life takes a surreal turn. She experiences miraculous visits from Third World emissaries, and even endures a phantom pregnancy. Meanwhile, Marilyn's new boyfriend, Dash, a toll booth attendant with "super-human genes," decides to pirate Marilyn and her ailing baby away to the Midwest, where they can begin life anew. In a series of short, interconnected scenes, alternately comic and poignant, the play weaves an intricate web of conflicting desires. Written with the narrative logic of a late-morning dream, WATBANALAND is a haunting story about hunger in its very human sexual, physical and spiritual.
Avg Rating
3.27
Number of Ratings
11
5 STARS
0%
4 STARS
45%
3 STARS
45%
2 STARS
0%
1 STARS
9%
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Author
Doug Wright
Author · 9 books
Doug Wright is an American playwright, librettist, and screenwriter. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2004 for his play, I Am My Own Wife.
