BOOK OF DAYS

BY LANFORD WILSON

8 JULY – 9 AUGUST 2014

AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE

“Well I’m not very imaginative….my mind just jumps to the obvious.”

In the parochial backwater of Dublin, Missouri, where life revolves around the cheese factory, the fundamentalist church and the community theatre, book-keeper Ruth lands the title role in a production of George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan.

When a prominent local businessman is violently killed, Ruth suspects foul play. She begins a determined quest to uncover the truth of his death, pitting her in direct conflict with powerful forces and unconsciously mirroring the character she is playing on stage: Shaw’s crusading, fearless Joan of Arc.

A comedy, a tragedy and a murder-mystery, Book of Days explores questions of morality and redemption, identity and community, and the threat posed by the religious right.

With echoes of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, the films of David Lynch and the poetic naturalism of Tennessee Williams, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lanford Wilson digs deep into the moral degeneracy of a small town, balancing comic observation and dramatic conflict with lyrical and politically-charged storytelling to illuminate the disparate ways people behave at a moment of crisis.

“Illuminates the deepest dramas of American life with poetry and compassion” New York Magazine