THE STORY: The setting is a shack in the desert, where a lone traveler, George, stops by hoping to get food. He is greeted by Yang, an elderly Chinese man, and then Ma, the owner of the establishment, and finally meets Josie, a young girl of uncertain background whom Ma has taken in. An intriguing aura of reality vs. unreality grows as the salty-tongued Ma, the philosophic Yang, and the two vulnerable young people probe into each other’s lives, and draw ever closer together, as though creating a separate and protected cosmos in the vast desert wilderness. Then George and Josie, having found love, decide to leave—sure that this time life will be good to them, but also knowing that a place of refuge will remain open to them should the world beyond the “desert” prove too harsh.
Selected for inclusion in “Best Short Plays,” this intriguing and highly original play uses subtlety and humor to great theatrical effect in its pensive study of “lost souls” who find themselves by helping each other.
