Praying Mantis
by Don Nigro

A swing on a back porch on a late summer night.

Laura, a girl of 17, has been abandoned first by her father, then by her mother, and left in the care of her stepfather, Stephen, 38.

They sit on the swing on the back porch on a late summer night, each struggling to come to terms with the growing but unspoken sexual tension between them.

A terse, understated little ticking time bomb of a play, in which most of what is going on lies just under the surface of the dialogue.

Meant to be done on its own, or in a trilogy with Night and Hologram , or as part of a group of six interrelated one acts that also includes Entanglement, Telepathy and Uncertainty .

Published in Grim Lake & Other Plays.