The Red Letter Plays: In the Blood

Presented with "F*cking A" for the first time

Playing in rep with her play "F*cking A" for the very first time, Susan Lori Parks' "In The Blood" again explores the themes of sex, vegeance and society, in her interpretation of Nathaniel Hawthorne's explosive The Scarlet Letter. In The Blood takes a different view of the anti-heroine known as Hester; instead of condemned abortionist, this version of Hester is a single mother of five children, all with different fathers. She is also branded with the letter A - this time for adultress.

Hester the "slut"

Hester is struggling in poverty to raise her five fatherless children; when given an opportunity to receive help from the men who left her in this predicament, she tries to elicite financial gains from them, including a reverand. Named a "slut" for her predicament, the final straw comes when her own son calls her the epithet. What transpires next is a horrific act of violence, which ironically lands her in jail, and unable to help her children at all.

First premiering in 1999 at the Joseph Papp Theater in New York, it was one of the finalists for the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Drama (Parks would go on to win this prize for her 2001 drama Topdog/Underdog). Ironically, it was originally named "F*cking A"; however Parks would go onto use this title for her follow-up work, which is playing at Romulus Linney Theatre at the same time.