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''Home Free!'' is a
one-act play A one-act play is a play that has only one act, as distinct from plays that occur over several acts. One-act plays may consist of one or more scenes. The 20-40 minute play has emerged as a popular subgenre of the one-act play, especially in writi ...
by American playwright
Lanford Wilson Lanford Wilson (April 13, 1937March 24, 2011) was an American playwright. His work, as described by ''The New York Times'', was "earthy, realist, greatly admired ndwidely performed". Fox, Margalit"Lanford Wilson, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Playwrigh ...
. The play is among Wilson's earlier works, and was first produced
off-off-Broadway Off-off-Broadway theaters are smaller New York City theaters than Broadway theatre, Broadway and off-Broadway theaters, and usually have fewer than 100 seats. The off-off-Broadway movement began in 1958 as part of a response to perceived commerc ...
at the
Caffe Cino Caffe Cino was an Off-Off-Broadway theater founded in 1958 by Joe Cino. The West Village coffeehouse, located at 31 Cornelia Street, was initially conceived as a venue for poetry, folk music, and visual art exhibitions. The plays produced at th ...
in 1964.


Production history

The play premiered at
Joe Cino Joseph Cino (November 16, 1931 – April 2, 1967), was an Italian-American theatre producer. The Off-Off-Broadway theatre movement is generally credited to have begun at Cino's Caffe Cino in the West Village, West Village of Manhattan. Caffe Cin ...
's Caffe Cino in
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
in January 1964 and was revived there in August 1964. The production was directed by William Archibald. In 1965, the play was produced alongside Wilson's ''No Trespassing'' for the
La MaMa La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club (sometimes abbreviated as La MaMa E.T.C.) is an Off-Off-Broadway theater founded in 1961 by African-American theatre director, producer, and fashion designer Ellen Stewart. Located in the East Village neighborho ...
Repertory Troupe's first European tour. It was produced alongside '' The Madness of Lady Bright'' on tour in
London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
in 1968. ''Home Free!'' was produced
off-Broadway An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer tha ...
in February 1965 at the New Playwrights series at the
Cherry Lane Theatre The Cherry Lane Theatre is the oldest continuously running off-Broadway theater in New York City. The theater is located at 38 Commerce Street between Barrow and Bedford Streets in the West Village neighborhood of Greenwich Village, Manhattan, ...
. The play was presented in a production of three plays. The other two plays in the production were
Sam Shepard Samuel Shepard Rogers III (November 5, 1943 – July 27, 2017) was an American playwright, actor, director, screenwriter, and author whose career spanned half a century. He wrote 58 plays as well as several books of short stories, essays, ...
's ''Up to Thursday'' and Paul Foster's ''Balls''. The series was headed by
Edward Albee Edward Franklin Albee III ( ; March 12, 1928 – September 16, 2016) was an American playwright known for works such as ''The Zoo Story'' (1958), ''The Sandbox (play), The Sandbox'' (1959), ''Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'' (1962), ''A Delicat ...
, Richard Barr, and Clinton Wilder. Wilson's play featured Michael Warren Powell.


Characters

Lawrence and Joanna are the play's two major characters. The additional characters Edna and Claypone are mentioned by Lawrence and Joanna, but have no lines and are not mentioned in the
Dramatis personae Dramatis personae (Latin: 'persons of the drama') are the main characters in a dramatic work written in a list. Such lists are commonly employed in various forms of theatre, and also on screen. Typically, off-stage characters are not consider ...
or the
stage directions In theatre, blocking is the precise staging of actors to facilitate the performance of a play, ballet, film or opera. Historically, the expectations of staging/blocking have changed substantially over time in Western theater. Prior to the movem ...
. This implies that they are
fictional characters In fiction, a character is a person or being in a narrative (such as a novel, play, radio or television series, music, film, or video game). The character may be entirely fictional or based on a real-life person, in which case the distinction o ...
in the minds of Lawrence and Joanna. Lawrence and Joanna are brother and sister. However, the play strongly implies that they are having an
incestuous relationship Incest ( ) is sex between close relatives, for example a brother, sister, or parent. This typically includes sexual activity between people in consanguinity (blood relations), and sometimes those related by lineage. It is condemned and cons ...
, which has resulted in Joanna's
pregnancy Pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring gestation, gestates inside a woman's uterus. A multiple birth, multiple pregnancy involves more than one offspring, such as with twins. Conception (biology), Conception usually occurs ...
. Lawrence (and, to a lesser degree, Joanna) is characterized by extreme
agoraphobia Agoraphobia is an anxiety disorder characterized by symptoms of anxiety in situations where the person perceives their environment to be unsafe with no way to escape. These situations can include public transit, shopping centers, crowds and q ...
. He is suspicious of everything that Joanna tells him about the outside world. At the end of the play, Lawrence refuses to go out, even to save Joanna's life. Lawrence believes totally in Edna and Claypone's existence, and Joanna mostly seems to share this belief. However, when Lawrence sends Edna to fetch the doctor, Joanna screams, "No, Lawrence, you go! You go!!!' This implies that Joanna knows that Edna doesn't exist and can't fetch the doctor, and that she has merely been pretending for Lawrence's sake.


Plot summary

Lawrence opens the play by delivering a lesson on
astronomy Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and their overall evolution. Objects of interest includ ...
, focusing on the
Pleiades The Pleiades (), also known as Seven Sisters and Messier 45 (M45), is an Asterism (astronomy), asterism of an open cluster, open star cluster containing young Stellar classification#Class B, B-type stars in the northwest of the constellation Tau ...
. While describing the effects of universal expansion, he becomes excited and jumps around the room, imitating the stars being flung in every direction. He eventually gets tired and starts muttering to himself about Joanna's return from the grocery store and what she has in the "Surprise Box", a brightly colored box that they use to give surprise gifts to each other. Joanna enters in a panic, having been seen by some frightening entity called either Pruneface or Wienerface, or both. She is pregnant. They engage in a number of strange, playful, seemingly random conversations. Joanna tells Lawrence about an encounter she had on the subway with a college-aged boy, and Lawrence accuses her of having sex with him. They play games, including one where Joanna is a
queen Queen most commonly refers to: * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a kingdom * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen (band), a British rock band Queen or QUEEN may also refer to: Monarchy * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Q ...
and Lawrence commands Edna and Claypone to fetch her various things. All of a sudden, however, he halts the game with the line: "You're not a queen, you're a whore." Eventually Joanna collapses, seemingly unable to walk. She screams at Lawrence to get a doctor, but he is afraid of the outside world and refuses to go outside, preferring to send Edna instead. Joanna's pains, possibly the result of
pre-eclampsia Pre-eclampsia is a multi-system disorder specific to pregnancy, characterized by the new onset of hypertension, high blood pressure and often a significant amount of proteinuria, protein in the urine or by the new onset of high blood pressure a ...
, persist. She eventually falls, unmoving, onto the bed. Lawrence leans over her and begs her to return, falling into a
stutter Stuttering, also known as stammering, is a speech disorder characterized externally by involuntary repetitions and prolongations of sounds, syllables, words, or phrases as well as involuntary silent pauses called blocks in which the person who ...
as the play ends.


References


External links

* Notes and drafts for ''Home Free!'' are held in th
Lanford Wilson Collection
at the University of Missouri Libraries {{Lanford Wilson 1964 plays Plays by Lanford Wilson One-act plays Plays about incest