Samuel French, Inc. The House of Plays & Musical Plays for Over 175 Years

Dead Ringer (DiIorio)
[29677]

$8.95

ISBN 978-0-573-69843-9

Gino DiIorio

2m, 1f

Dark Comedy, Noir

Single set

Winner! 2005 BBC International Playwriting Contest

Tyrus Cole, a horse trainer, lives on a ranch with his invalid sister Mary. Because he can’t watch her during the day, Tyrus has Mary confined to a root cellar. When Dwight Foley arrives at the ranch seeking help with his horse, he and Mary fall in love and begin plotting the demise of Tyrus and their eventual escape. Their plan escalates and in the end, the three find themselves trapped in a complex web of greed and secrets.

“You don’t see a lot of film noir westerns, but that genre turns out to be a winning combination…Humor was never a big factor in 1940s and ’50s film noir, but it has a place here. Mr. DiIorio’s low-key jokiness comes from attitude and from the smooth use of western vernacular… Forcefully absorbing.”–The New York Times.

FEE: $75 per performance

Character Descriptions:
DWIGHT FOLEY – 30. A heavyset man with a thin beard. He has an innocence about him that borders on naiveté. He is not confident and can easily be hurt with harsh words.

MARY COLE – 28. The woman in the hole. She is never seen throughout the course of the play. She has many physical ailments and deformities. Her head is misshapen and she cannot walk. But she manages to feed and clean herself as the strength of her arms allows her to move about her small space. Mary is very intelligent, carrying herself with a hard edge of sarcasm and wit. She has a voice like an angel and at times, displays a mystical quality. Mary has no selfpity whatsoever and one gets the impression that had it not been for her physical defects, she could easily win a fist fight with her brother.

TYRUS COLE – 35. Mary’s older brother. He is tall and muscular, clean shaven with hard, angular features. Ty wears the burden of his sister’s ailment on his sleeve. His cruelty toward her is born more of self-loathing than sadism.

Quantity:

Customers who bought this product also purchased

Train Driver, The	Irish Curse, The	Roadkill Confidential
Death by Golf	Small Talk: Eight Ten-Minute Plays	Cat's-Paw