A bewitching new drama of desire, jealousy, murder and voodoo, The House That Will Not Stand has at its centre a black family living in New Orleans in 1836 as they mourn a mysteriously departed husband and father.
Marcus Gardley is a poet-playwright who was awarded the 2011 PEN/Laura Pels award for Mid-Career Playwright. His most recent play, Every Tongue Confess, premiered at Arena Stage, Washington. His musical, On The Levee, premiered at LCT3/Lincoln Center Theater and was nominated for 11 Audelco Awards including outstanding playwright. His play, And Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi, was produced at The Cutting Ball Theater, San Francisco, and received the SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award nomination for outstanding new play. It is published in The Methuen Drama Book of Post-Black Plays.
Marcus Gardley's play is a lyrical vision of rivalry, jealousy and
racial prejudice. Set in New Orleans in the 1830s, it strikingly
depicts passion and repression in a style that is sometimes
reminiscent of Federico Garcia Lorca's great The House of Bernarda
Alba yet also affords fresh insight into a largely unfamiliar
historical period.
*Evening Standard*
For all of Gardley's palpable debt to Lorca, his play has a
historical fascination and exuberant theatricality all its own.
[...] It's a rich mix, but Gardley vividly captures the sense of a
house not only divided against itself but also caught up in a war
of different traditions.
*Guardian*
The House That Will Not Stand . . . opens a fascinating window on
to the largely forgotten phenomenon of placage . . .
*The Times*
Gardley is an acclaimed poet as well as a playwright, and his
script . . . is shot through with a dreamy lyricism. At times, the
effect is startlingly beautiful . . .
*Daily Telegraph*
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