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Four Baboons Adoring the Sun
Author(s):
John Guare
Musician/Composer(s):
Stephen Edwards
Eros, the god of love, narrates the action of the play in haunting passages akin to the Greek choruses of ancient tragedies. We meet Penny and Philip, newlyweds who have abandoned unhappy marriages to work together on Philip's archeological dig in Sicily. They bring along their nine children, hoping to instill in them a love of antiquity and a zest for the same impassioned living they've re-discovered in middle age. What they aren't willing to discuss with the children, however, is that their marriage originally began as an illicit affair, symbolically identifying with an half-buried statue of four baboons basking contentedly in the sun. Immediately, the children announce that they knew of the affair from the start, and worse, their eldest children, Wayne and Halcy, have fallen in love and are demanding permission to have sex. Forbidden to continue the relationship, the children escape during an earthquake that separates the two families. Penny and Philip find them just as they are making love on a hilltop. Fleeing his parents, Wayne climbs a cliff and accidentally falls to his death. Philip, his spirit broken, returns to the States for the funeral, but Penny stays behind. The play ends with Penny basking in the Sicilian sun, meditating with the deeper understanding of what the four baboons statue has come to symbolize to her: There they sit, blinded by the very sun they worship, yet drawn again and again, regardless of pain, to its life-giving warmth.
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| Genre(s): | Comedy
Drama
| | Time Period(s): | Not Available | | Play Type: | Musical | | Runtime: | Not Available | | Acts: | Not Available | | Set Complexity: | Not Available | | Set Information: | Not Available | | Year First Published: | Not Available | | Total Characters: | 12 | | Male Characters: | 2 | | Female Characters: | 1 | | Androgynous Characters: | 9 | | Minimum Cast: | Not Available | | Maximum Cast: | Not Available | | Cost: | FEE: $60 per performance. SPECIAL NOTE: A piano/vocal version of the original score by Stephen Edwards is available through the Play Service for a fee of $10.00. Fee for use of this music is quoted upon application
Royalty/cost information prone to change.
Please check with the publisher for the most accurate information. | | Publisher: | Dramatists Play Service
Click on the publisher's name above for additional information, including updated prices. | | ISBN: | Not Available |
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