PLAYS
(Left: Karen Blomain on the set of AN AMERICAN WIFE.
SYNOPSIS
As World War II
ends, Frank Flynn, a young soldier returns to a Pennsylvania mining town with
his Polish war bride, Stella. Forced to move into his family’s small row house
already crammed with three generations: mother, brother, sister-in-law and
their child, the couple tries to make do. The closing of the mine where
Frank believed a job waited for him and the attitude of his mother and the rest
of the town toward his new wife, dispirits the returning soldier.
In contrast,
ebullient and charming Stella, gradually works her charm and magic on her new
family and the townspeople. A hint of what she endured during the war
comes through when she makes a brief reference to her lost sister. While
her new husband and some of the other unemployed miners succumb to alcohol
abuse and start to develop various implausible schemes for making money, Stella
is the first to report for work at a newly-opened pants factory. The other
women in town follow. Despite her limited English and the unspoken sorrow of
her past, Stella buoys her husband’s hope for the future and supports him. Just
as it becomes clear that Stella is, as the grandmother predicted, pregnant, the
specter of her husband’s old girlfriend intrudes. Were promises made and
broken? Stella is haunted now by Frank’s past as well as her own.
Frank Flynn, the
soldier/hero and his brother concoct a plan to drive to New York to buy
Christmas trees to sell in their hometown. At first, the plan meets with
ridicule and resistance by the mother-in-law, the brother’s wife and others in
the town; only Stella stalwartly supports her husband. While the men are off on
their Christmas tree expedition and the grandmother visits her sister, the young
women briefly throw off their immediate troubles and cook, dance, drink and
share their stories. The two women, sisters-in-law and unlikely friends bond in
their mutual worry. Stella shares her horrific experiences in Poland
during the war.
In the meantime,
the men barely avert a disaster on a snowy road when a vision warns them away
from a precipice and disaster. The apparition takes the form of Stella’s
lost sister. The men return—the trip and investment proving a triumph and
a new start for the Flynn family. The problem of Frank’s other girl is
solved when the woman in question marries someone else. The Flynn family
prepares for the holiday and the birth of the new child.
(Left: Playwrights Michael Downend and Karen Blomain at Equity premiere of play.)
THE BIRDS BAZAAR
A Play by Karen Blomain & Mark Zeller
Private reading, The Drilling Company, New York City,
October 2010
Reading, Botique Theatre, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
January 2011
SYNOPSIS (to follow)
