Barbary Fox
by Don Nigro

A long one act, really capable of being a full evening of theatre with no act break.

In rural Pendragon County, Ohio, at the end of the 19th century, the very beautiful Barbary Fox and her little sister are orphaned as children when their drunken parents turn a wagon over in the creek late one Halloween night on their way back from a party, dressed as two halves of a zebra.

Her uncle Rem vows to raise them at his house by the dump, next to the fireworks factory and the chicken plucking plant, but their childhood is a nightmare.

Rem is a drunkard who tries to reform by drinking vinegar, but ends up locking Barbary in the fruit cellar every night so she won't run out into thunderstorms looking for zebras.

Later, she's rescued by a shady character named Bert Astor, who may have been complicit in Rem's death.

Bert and Barbary live next door to Silas Quiller and his wife Magenta, and their lives become grotesquely entangled with the lives of their neighbors.

Bert seems to be blackmailing Silas.

Magenta plays the piano and drinks, and peeks through the window when Barbary takes baths.

Seen partly through the eyes of Barbary's very troubled daughter Gretchen, as she attempts to put together the fragments of knowledge she has about her mother's life and mysterious death, this play weaves a darkly funny tapestry, back and forth in time, as we gradually put together the pieces of a bizarre and tragic puzzle.

In Barbary Fox & Other Plays.