Nocturne

Synopsis

A play

<i>"Fifteen years ago I killed my sister."</i>

So begins Adam Rapp's highly acclaimed play <i>Nocturne</i>, in which a 32-year-old former piano prodigy recounts the tragic events that tore his family apart.

With a keen eye for human relationships and a deft ear for language, Rapp explores the aftershock of this unimaginable event.

The father is so incapable of forgiveness he puts a gun in his son's mouth; the mother so shattered, she deserts the family and eventually takes leave of her sanity altogether; the son--only 17 years old at the time--sets out for New York City.

There, he seeks an uneasy refuge in books and reinvents himself as a writer.

Across the decade and a half that follows he tries to cope with the ramifications of his own anguish and estrangement while making a desperate search for redemption.

A devastating, elegant, and gripping dissection of the American dream, <i>Nocturne</i> signals a brave new voice in American theater.