Beast With Two Backs
by Don Nigro

Name: Beast With Two Backs
Brand: Don Nigro
SKU: 9780573628115
Rating: 3.4 (4 reviews)

Beast With Two Backs Book Cover — Beast With Two Backs Cover

Highlights

Small Cast

Female

Male

120 mins1920sEnsemble CastInterior SetPeriod CostumesAmerican

What readers are saying

Readers find the play offers an intriguing perspective on New York in the late 1920s, highlighting the complexities of human nature and personal responsibility. The thematic depth resonates well, prompting reflections on the darker sides of life. Many appreciate the thought-provoking narrative and character exploration.

Intriguing perspective on the 1920sThought-provoking narrativeDeep character explorationLimited audience engagement

Synopsis

In Greenwich Village in the late 1920s Al, an artist, moves into a rooming house on Macdougal Street and finds himself being pulled deeper and deeper into the lives of its inhabitants.

Above him live Mary Margaret, a lost actress from Ohio, and her philandering poet boyfriend, Jem.

Al meets Mary Margaret when she comes home drunk one night and blunders into his bed.

He falls in love with her.

The landlord, McLish, keeps bursting into Al's room to help him with his romance.

McLish, a failed writer, has his own troubles: a beautiful but compulsively disloyal wife.

And somebody keeps playing "The Saint James Infirmary Blues."

Al's attempt to rescue Mary Margaret is the core of this richly atmospheric love story which vividly recreates the world of artists and writers in this era.

(Mary Margaret also appears in his Anima Mundi and Laestrygonians.) In Pendragon Plays.

Characters

Character	Gender	Age	Description
Al late 20s	—	20s	late 20s
Mary Margaret late 20s	—	20s	late 20s
Jem late 20s	—	20s	late 20s
Rachel early 30s	—	30s	early 30s
Mclish a man of about 40	—	—	a man of about 40