Synopsis:
Adapted from Pulitzer Prizewinning novelist Michael Cunninghams keenly observed saga of twentieth-century American life, FLESH AND BLOOD traces nearly 100 years in the lives of one archetypal family. Dominated by their volatile father, the Greek immigrant Constantine, and alienated from their mother, the genteel and ambitious Mary, the Stassos children, Susan, Billy and Zoe, struggle to build lives and find love in a culture undergoing tectonic shifts. Like lonely planets whose long, elliptical orbits collide in unexpected, sometimes violent ways, the members of the Stassos family, as well as the extraordinary friends and lovers whom they find along their way, careen both towards and away from one another in poignant, heartbreaking and sometimes shattering fashion. Burdened by expectation, betrayed by circumstance and confounded by desires that they can only struggle to control, the ever-evolving clan marches inexorably toward tragedyand ultimately redemption. Eschewing a literal translation of the novels massive scale, the play employs an almost musical structure, relying on theatrical versions of counterpoint, rhythm and harmony to illustrate both the yawning chasms and the intimate spaces that define human relationships. Finding humor in the most unlikely of places, sadness in the funniest of exchanges and grace in the most devastating of circumstances, FLESH AND BLOOD is a detailed, poetic and boldly theatrical reinvention of a classic American story.
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