The Liquid Plain

The Liquid Plain (Naomi Wallace, 2012) Commissioned through the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s American Revolutions: the United States History Cycle and winner of the 2012 Horton Foote Prize for Promising New American Play, The Liquid Plain explores sexuality and the violence of the slave trade as we meet two runaway slaves on the docks of an 18th century Rhode Island port. Finding love and a neardrowned man, the mysteries of Adjua and Dembi identities come to light, as do the painful truths about the past and the present, which flow into the next generation. Set in 1791 in Bristol, Rhode Island, the lovers find the body of a drowned white man. In the second act (1837) an educated free black woman pays a visit from England. Discovering far more than she bargained for about her history and the nature of justice, love, and vengeance.