 Press Room:
The Kentucky Cycle
(Parts I & II)
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Synopsis – Part One
The first part of The Kentucky Cycle
contains five plays: Masters of the Trade (1775), The Courtship of
Morning Star (1776), The Homecoming (1792), Ties That Bind
(1819), and God’s Great Supper (1861). These plays explore the
motives of violence and revenge, all in the name of family and land.
 Masters of the Trade
concerns Michael Rowen and how he comes to acquire the land in the first
place. Michael is an Irish immigrant whose family has been killed in a
Cherokee attack in eastern Kentucky prior to the American Revolution. He
expresses no real remorse for his wife and daughter, but rather sees their
deaths as an opportunity. He finds the man who sold the Cherokee their guns
and he and his accomplice, Sam, kill the man. The shots bring the Cherokee
warriors, who do not trust Michael, but decide to trade with him. Michael
then kills Sam to show that he, Michael, can be trusted as the one to kill
the man who killed their friend, Earl Tod. Michael trades the guns, powder,
and shot that the Cherokee want for the land that he wants. However, Michael
is not a good man. Not only has he killed two men, but the blankets that he
gives the Cherokee are infected with smallpox. Michael knows that the
disease will wipe out the tribe.
The Courtship of Morning Star,
the second play in the cycle, concerns Michael’s marriage to a Cherokee
girl, Morning Star. She is one of the few survivors of Michael’s smallpox
plague and she knows that he is the one who has decimated her tribe. He has
kidnapped her because he needs a woman to complete his plan. He needs
children. Michael is brutal in his rape and treatment of Morning Star. He
gives her no choice but to live with him and bear his children. When she
tries to escape, he catches her and cuts her Achilles tendon. He does this
so that she will never be able to run away from him again. Michael continues
to threaten her. He tells her that their first child MUST be a boy or he
will kill the child. Morning Star’s fear and loathing for this man become
clear in her speeches during her pregnancy. She mourns for her family and
fears for herself. The play ends as Morning Star sings to her son and
Michael expresses his fear of the child.
The Homecoming
picks up the story 16 years later as Patrick Rowen tries to make sense of
his life and of his fear of both his parents. Patrick is in love with
Rebecca Talbert, daughter of a neighboring farmer, Joe, but both families
oppose the match. Michael is too jealous of his son and Joe just does not
like the Rowens. Morning Star convinces Patrick that Michael intends to
disinherit him and the only way Patrick can secure his claim to the land is
to kill his father. After a trading trip, Michael returns to his home with a
female slave. All successful farmers in the South had slaves and Michael was
determined to be a success. Patrick stabs his father while the man is
bathing in front of his mother, the slave, and, unfortunately, Rebecca and
her father, Joe. However, this is exactly what Morning Star planned. She
wanted to get rid of Michael and her son, but Patrick’s violence was too
strong for her. He killed Joe, the only man she had ever loved, and
threatened to kill Morning Star as well. Neither the slave, Sallie, nor
Rebecca, whom he would rape and “marry,” could help her. Patrick drinks a
toast to his “wedding” over his father’s dead body.
 Fourth
in the cycle of plays is Ties That Bind. This play takes place in
1819, over 20 years later. Rebecca has died in childbirth with the second of
two sons, and Patrick never remarried. Zeke and Zach have grown up with
Sallie acting as mother and her son as brother. They are vaguely aware of an
approaching disaster, but the true depth of Morning Star’s revenge becomes
obvious slowly. Patrick is heavily in debt and the bank is foreclosing on
his loans. The justice of the peace comes to Patrick’s farm, armed to the
teeth, and sets out the terms of his bankruptcy. An unidentified man holds
all the loans on Patrick’s land and slowly, piece by piece he forces Patrick
to give up everything, including Sallie and her son, Jessie. Even the news
that Jessie is Patrick’s half brother does not stop him. Finally, with
nothing left, Patrick begs the stranger for mercy. Only then does Jeremiah
Talbert reveal himself and Morning Star appears as well. Patrick realizes
that they have tricked him and his family out of everything they own and his
anger burns deep. However, there is nothing he can do about it at the
moment. Zach, disgusted by his father’s selling of his own flesh and blood,
leaves and is never heard from again. Patrick survives, nursing his hatred
and vengeance.
The last play in Part One is God’s Great Supper.
This play is the climax and focal point for all the other plays. Patrick has
aged to a drooling old man and his son, Zeke, and grandson, Jed, are bent on
revenge against the Talberts. Jed pretends to befriend the young Randall
Talbert, Jeremiah’s grandson, thus alienating his own family. Jed, of
course, is only doing this to please his father and his hatred of the
Talberts runs just as deep as the other members of his family. Jed
volunteers for Richard Talbert’s unit in the Civil War and kills Talbert by
pushing him off a boat after they have escaped from the enemy. Jed joins a
group of outlaws for a while before he comes home to oversee the murder of
Randall and the rapes of his two sisters. The Talbert family home is
destroyed and Jed claims the land back as his birthright. There is no one
left to oppose him.
Synopsis – Part Two
Part Two of The Kentucky Cycle has the
remaining four plays: Tall Tales (1885), Fire in the Hole
(1920), Whose Side Are You On? (1954), and The War on Poverty
(1975). All four of these plays deal with coal mining and its effects on the
people of eastern Kentucky.
The first play of Part Two, Tall Tales
narrates how Jed Rowen finally lost the land that his ancestors had fought
and died over. Jed is now middle aged with a young daughter, lots of land,
very little money, and less sense. His family is isolated and his wife and
daughter dream of far-away places and luxuries that they simply cannot
afford. A storyteller, J.T. Wells, arrives at the Rowen farm and starts to
spin his magic. Although he claims to be from the area, he says he has lived
in New York City, New Orleans, and other exotic places. Mary Anne, Jed’s
daughter, and Lallie, his wife, are mesmerized by J.T.’s hypnotic tales. The
only one who is not happy is Tommy Jackson, who is in love with Mary Anne
and thinks that the stranger is there to steal her heart. In reality, he is
there to steal her land. By fake “hard” bargaining, J.T. convinces Jed to
sell not only the mineral rights but his entire farm for $1 per acre. This
does not sit well with Lallie and she tries to convince him not to sell even
a rock of his place. Jed, however, will not listen to a woman’s advice and
sells his property thinking he has made a great deal. Though the land was
actually worth millions, Jed sells everything that he and his ancestors had
built for $170. In a fit of remorse, J.T. tries to tell Mary Anne what the
deed really means, but she cannot comprehend that other people would be so
sneaky. Tommy attacks and kills J.T.; and Jed, again refusing to listen to a
woman, stands by his signature. Mary Anne’s favorite tree is the first thing
the mining company cuts down.
Fire in the Hole
and Whose
Side Are You On? make up the core of Schenkkan’s cycle of America’s rise
and fall. These two plays deal with the conditions in eastern Kentucky after
the mining companies take over and the workers’ attempts at unionization.
Mary Anne Rowen and Tommy Jackson are married and she has watched five of
her six sons die of the typhoid that hits the area with horrible regularity.
The mining company literally owns the entire town; there is no other
employment. Tommy and Mary Anne cannot even pay for the medicine to heal
their last child, Joshua. Where Mary Anne’s father had once owned the entire
valley, she and her family are reduced to renting a house from the company,
buying food at the company store, and loading ten tons of coal a day, six
days a week. The miners are not even paid in money, but given company script
good only at the company store. A stranger, Abe Steinman, arrives on the
scene and attempts to organize the miners. He pays for Joshua’s medicine,
thus winning Mary Anne’s eternal gratitude and devotion. Tommy, however, is
not so easily swayed. He does agree to help Abe organize the workers and
even arranges to buy guns from Cassius Biggs, his cousin (although neither
admit to being related). But at the last moment, Tommy panics and tells the
mine owners everything. Abe and the other organizers are killed, setting off
a chain of angry events. Mary Anne blames Tommy and he is dragged off and
killed by other miners. She takes back her maiden name and forms the union
that Tommy was afraid would destroy their lives. As with all such labor
organizations, the blessings are mixed.
Schenkkan portrays these mixed blessings in the
eighth play Whose Side are You On? Joshua has become the president of
the local chapter of the United Mine Workers Union and quite a skillful
politician. He lacks the idealism of his son, Scotty, preferring instead, a
jaded realism. He allows major safety violations to go uncorrected because
James Talbert Winston, the owner of the mine, threatens to shut the
operation down completely if he does not. James, Franklin Biggs, and Joshua
play with the numbers of layoffs, severance packages, and wages without any
real concern that they are playing with people’s lives. Scotty has problems
with his father’s callous attitude and refuses to play along with his game.
Joshua and James’s corner-cutting on safety causes a cave-in at the mine and
Scotty is killed. Even in the face of his personal tragedy, Joshua plays the
part James wants him to and he passes the cave-in off as a mere accident,
not something that was preventable. The play ends as Scott Rowen’s name is
read as one of the victims.
The final play in The Kentucky Cycle is
called The War on Poverty. It takes place 21 years after Scotty’s
death. The mining company has gone bankrupt and there is nothing left of
either the company, the union, or the community. Joshua, James, and Franklin
are wandering out on the land that was supposed to become the county
hospital and was originally the Rowen homestead. Although Joshua does not
know it, he feels a connection to the land and he is not ready to give up as
the other two men are. They discover the mummified remains of a child,
wrapped in bead-embroidered buckskin that was unearthed by a pair of
scavengers. The audience realizes that this is the body of Morning Star’s
girl child that Michael had killed in 1782. While James and Franklin want to
take the buckskin back to town to sell, Joshua suddenly feels the need to
rebury the child. He threatens his friends with his rifle and they put the
body down. Joshua feels his connection to the land and celebrates the beauty
of the Kentucky landscape by howling with a lone wolf nearby.
About the Characters
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Archives
A Day in
Hollywood
Nunsense
Dearly Beloved
The Secret
Garden
Nunsensations!
Woody Guthrie's American
Song
The Odd Couple
1776
Noises OFF
Cabaret
Oliver
Deathtrap
2005
John Muir Summer Festival
Over
the Tavern
Judgment
at Nuremberg
AIDA
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