The Unmentionables: A Play - Softcover

Set in western equatorial Africa, The Unmentionables opens with a pugnacious monologue warning the audience to get out while they still have a chance to do something really fun - like watch cable television. Those who resist this directive are treated to a biting satire featuring four Americans hoping to "do good in the world": a young Christian missionary and his ex-fiancee, a disenchanted Hollywood actress, and an aging, wealthy businessman and his desperately lonely wife. A fire set at the missionary's home ignites a night of painful disillusionment, as their notions of how to help the locals are exploded by the realities of money, power, and politics. The stakes rise steadily until they are forced to confront the question of the value of a single life.

Bruce Norris is a writer and an actor whose Pulitzer Prize- and Olivier Award-winning play" Clybourne Park" premiered at Playwrights Horizons in January 2010. Other plays include "The Infidel", "Purple Heart", "We All Went Down to Amsterdam", "The Pain and the Itch", and "The Unmentionables", all of which premiered at Steppenwolf Theatre. Norris is the recipient of the 2009 Steinberg Playwright Award and the Whiting Foundation Prize for Drama. He resides in New York.