Ludlow Fair And Home Free! Book

THE STORIES: LUDLOW FAIR. In words of the Village Voice, this ‚¬¦is a bedtime story about two girl roommates. Rachel is glamorous, fast-living, sometimes lost in her own self-dramatizations; Agnes is plain, matter-of-fact, her shyness masked by a kooky personality. The play is ostensibly about Rachel: She turned her latest boyfriend in to the police when he stole from her, and now she is remorseful - now she decides she is in love with him. Agnes tries to cheer her up with wisecracks, then tries to rekindle her self-awareness, and finally Rachael goes to sleep. Agnes is left alone, thinking about her lunch date with the boss' disappointing son tomorrow. And suddenly it is her play, the realist is the true romantic. Agnes' unprepossessing but real emotions outweigh Rachel's trumped-up, self-indulgent flourishes, and suddenly the play is simple and moving. (2 women.) HOME FREE! Lawrence and Joanna, a brother and sister in their mid-twenties, have cut themselves off from the world outside, living in a cluttered playroom which they share with two imaginary companions, Edna and Claypone. Surrounded by toys, including a brightly colored miniature Ferris wheel, they have created an atmosphere of almost suffocating intimacy and remove, where play becomes the business of life and reality an alien force to be kept at bay. But life intrudes all the same, and their fantasies have betrayed them into Joanna's pregnancy. Yet even this cruel irony can only be dealt with in almost antic, unreal terms, as though it too were but a facet of the dream world Lawrence and Joanna have constructed about themselves. They continue to play and talk idly of future plans - until the birth pangs begin and their house of illusion comes crashing down. But still Lawrence cannot leave, cannot face the world beyond their door. Instead he sends Edna for the doctor, and as Joanna's life ebbs away he holds her hand and talks of the new toy he has made for her and hidden away in their Surprise Box of secret treasures. (1 man, 1 woman.)