| | Author: | Stacey Lane | | EMail: | StaceyLaneInk@yahoo.com | | ICWP Member?: | Yes | | Nearest Large City: | Dayton, Ohio | | Country: | USA | | Play Title: | A Thousand Variations on a Lie Told Once | | Runtime: | 91-120 minutes | | Synopsis: | How many times do you have to tell a lie before it becomes the truth? In, A Thousand Variations on a Lie Told Once, three grown daughters return to their childhood home to confront their mother and her new fiancé about the farewell letters that they believe their deceased father has left for them, but twenty years later they still have not received. The daughters’ burning drive to connect with the father they never truly knew prevents them from pursuing a relationship with the mother they have always known, but failed to understand.
As they prepare for Christmas Eve dinner, the overconfident fiancé assures his beloved that the evening will be fine. She predicts that it will be disastrous and that her children will disapprove of her new relationship. Her predictions soon come true when her daughters arrive and a spat immediately breaks out about her middle child’s newly-dyed red hair. Through out the evening, the family debates range from the comical to the heartbreaking, as they bicker over everything from vegetarianism, board games, and frogs to the oldest daughter’s child that she won’t allow her mother to meet, and of course, the missing goodbye letters.
When the tension peaks and the daughters’ accusations become too much for her, the mother convinces her fiancé to forge the letters. The youngest daughter eagerly clings to her long-anticipated letter and decides to move back home. The middle daughter responds with anger, as she feels betrayed by her mother’s insistence over the years that the letters did not exist. The oldest daughter recognizes that the letters are falsified and admits that when she was a child, she made up that her father promised her a letter.
In the course of one evening, alliances are formed and broken, as the family struggles to reconnect with their bittersweet past and separate the truth from the fantasy. Transcending the blunt verbal battles, the marred communication skills, the lost time, and the fractured memories is a deeper unbreakable connection, family.
| | Male: | 1 | | Female: | 4 | | Max. Cast: | 5 | | Min. Cast: | 5 | | Media: | Stage | | Genre: | Comic/Drama | | Theme: | truth | | Web Page: | www.StaceyLaneInk.com | | First Name: | Stacey | | Last Name: | Lane | | Notes: | Winner of the Women Playwright’s Initiative 3rd Annual Script Competition
Winner of Friday Night Footlights at Independent Theatre Collective
Nominated for “Outstanding Playwriting for a New Script of a Play or Book of a Musical” at the Midtown International Theatre Festival
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