CANE FIELDS BURNING
by Kemuel DeMoville
When a young man returns to help his father sort through his recently deceased grandfather’s belongings, family secrets come back to haunt the men. The discovery of a worn photo of a picture bride drudges up memories that refuse to be erased. The spirit of the woman in the photo forces herself onto the young man’s consciousness in a desperate attempt to be remembered before the last trace of her life on earth is swept away. She forces the young man to relive the story of her arrival to Hawai’i, and her subsequent murder in the sugarcane fields. As the young man unearths the truth about his grandfather’s past, he is haunted by his own guilt, and made to confront his father about his abusive tendencies. The family’s history of violence eventually comes to rest on the young man’s shoulders and he is forced to confront demons all his own. Utilizing the structure and conventions of traditional Noh theatre, the play blurs the line between memory, reality, and fantasy to examine the hereditary nature of abuse and destruction.
- Cast Size: 5M, 1F, 4+ Either
- Running Time: 90+ minutes
- Royalty Rate: $75 per performance
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About the Playwright
Kemuel DeMoville an award-winning playwright whose work has been produced somewhere in the world every year since 2005. Recently his work was produced in Hungary, Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, Israel, and all over the USA. Various plays he has written were the recipients of the Residents Prize, and Hawaii Prize from Kumu Kahua Theatre. He was awarded the Milken Prize for Playwriting in 2017. Kemuel is also an Aurand Harris Fellow by designation of the Children’s Theatre Foundation of America. Kemuel has an MFA in playwriting from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, and an MA in syncretic theatre from Victoria University of Wellington in Aotearoa New Zealand. His work has been published in part by Next Stage Press, YouthPLAYS, Heuer Publishing, The Kenyon Review, Cirque, Spider Magazine and is included in 222 MORE Comedy Monologues, an anthology from Smith and Kraus Publishers.
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