Gnadiges Fraulein

THE STORY: As outlined in Variety: THE GNADIGES FRAULEIN (translatable as 'The Gracious Lady') is the justification of the word 'Slapstick' in the overall title. It's a far-out tragic-comedy in the genre of the Theatre of the Absurd, with a touch of the Theatre of Cruelty. It's quite funny at times, though basically and finally sad. The scene is a rickety bunkhouse, for 'permanent transients' in a place called Cocaloony Key, obviously off the southern tip of Florida. The characters include a kooky society gossip columnist, the frowsy crone who runs the place, a demented former Viennese vaudevillian, a Cocaloony bird (evidently a local name for a pelican) and a tomahawk-brandishing, war-whooping, blond-wigged Indian. The interplay of these characters, antic in both appearance and behavior, forms the heart and meaning of the play. Sometimes funny, sometimes sad, it becomes both fascinating and deeply affecting as the underlying humanity of each grotesque is made real through what they are, and do, and what happens to them.Williams, Tennessee is the author of 'Gnadiges Fraulein' with ISBN 9780822204510 and ISBN 0822204517.