The Dark at the Top of the Stairs

Written by William Inge

Directed by Dan Ashlock Jr.

The setting is a small Oklahoma town in the early 1920s and the home of the Flood family. Here we find Rubin, a traveling salesman for a harness firm; Cora, his sensitive and lovely wife; Sonny, their little boy; and Reenie, their teenage daughter. The plot consists of a series of short stories — the fight between a husband and wife, the fear of an overly shy young girl on going to a dance, the problems of an introverted little boy who feels that the whole world is against him, the corroding marriage of Cora’s rowdy sister, and the tragedy of a military school cadet who suffers from the stigma of being a Jew in an alien community.

This show is performed in Desert Stage’s intimate Actors Café.