Ceremonies In Dark Old Men

Ceremonies In Dark Old Men centers on the fractured Parker family, whose aging patriarch struggles to hold onto memories of his heyday while his daughter toils at a dead-end office job, his two hustling sons, as a way of gaining some sort of pride, sell bootleg whiskey and engage in petty thievery, and a smooth-talking con artist runs numbers out of their decrepit barber shop. There’s humor, but tragedy awaits.

There have been many imitations of this kind of play (substitute drugs for whiskey) but the original is stark, simple, and still powerful. It deals with issues that still plague social debate in America: who is responsible? What about Self Respect? The underlying problem is shaking off the spiritual legacy of slavery.