The Rimers of Eldritch: And Other Plays, Paperback

Mr. Wilson handles the collage technique so beautifully that we leave convinced no other method would have served half so well. This reviewer liked Rimers for its fluidity, for its language, for its almost musical sense of pattern.--The New York Times

The mystery is, who he is, who murdered him and what were the circumstances? And to solve it, Wilson looks at the outsides and insides of his tiny, Middle Western town. He looks at a middle-aging woman who falls in love with the young man who comes to work in her café. He looks at a coarse, nasty woman mistreating her senile mother, who is obsessed with visions of Eldritch being evil and headed for blood-spilling. He looks at a tender relationship between a young man a dreamy, crippled girl. But Wilson sees far more than this. He is grasping the very fabric of Bible Belt America, with its catchword morality ("virgin," "God-fearing") and its capability for the vicious. He senses the rhythm of its life and the cruelty it can impose. He understands the speech patterns of its loveless gossips, its sex-hungry boys, its compassionless preachers, its car-conscious blondes. In the end his portrait of Eldritch is full length, and the truth of its revelations will be pondered long after the stage lights have dimmed and the play has ended.

About author(s):Lanford Wilson (1937-2011) was born in Lebanon, Missouri, and attended the University of Chicago. A founding member of the Circle Repertory Company in New York, he has seen many of his plays produced in theaters all over the United States and abroad. His work includes Angel's Fall, Burn This, Lemon Sky, and many more. He is the recipient of many awards, including a Drama Desk Vernon Rice Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and two Obies