"The Kentucky Cycle" by Robert Schenkkan is a Pulitzer Prize winning dramatic script which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1992. It is comprised of nine short one act plays which are intended to be produced by the same company of actors in one or two days and has been produced onstage in only a small number of cities. Yet, it won the Pulitzer over four other finalists including "Two Trains Running" by August Wilson, the great African American playwright whose plays had won two Pulitzer prizes in the previous five years, and whose crafting of drama was so consistently above average that in his lifetime he had five plays nominated for the prize including two which were winners. In fact, Wilson's "Fences" is generally considered one of the greatest plays ever written. I am not certain that the Pulitzer committee got it right in 1992.
"The Kentucky Cycle" is described as a "...sweeping epic of three families in Eastern Kentucky (which) spans 200 years of American history from 1775 to 1975." The world premier of "The Kentucky Cycle" was held in Seattle and the production opened on Broadway on November 14, 1993, almost 11 months after the Pulitzer Prizes were awarded. The Broadway production closed on December 12, 1993, less than a month after the opening with a total of only 33 performances which says the play was less than a success in New York. It averaged less than 57% of capacity during the Broadway run.
I do not claim to be an expert on drama as literature or on dramatic production but I have acted in numerous one act Christmas plays during my grade school years, played leads in a few college plays, and read drama on a regular basis. In my estimation, this play or plays, if you prefer, since it is composed of nine one act plays which were intended to be performed in either one day with a lunch break or over two days with five of the plays on one day and four on the other, is of less quality than the average winner of a Pulitzer Prize. The script is filled with gratuitous violence including a double murder in the opening minutes; one case of patricide; one case of filicide because the child was born a girl; contains numerous negative stereotypes of Appalachian people; frequent use of the cultural and ethnic epithet "hillbilly"; and appears to have been written primarily as an experiment in minimal staging and unique production elements. I tend to believe that the Pulitzer was awarded for two reasons: 1) the unique staging with minimal sets and little changes during the switches from one play to another made it a unique creature in American drama; 2) August Wilson had just won two Pulitzer Prizes for his plays in the previous five years and the committee had no intentions of being accused of considering him a favored playwright again.
The script is a unique creature as I have stated above and it does have some redeeming qualities but those qualities and the Pulitzer win were not enough to keep it in frequent staging around the country at outdoor theaters, college and university drama departments, or other venues. It obviously had to be premiered in Seattle instead of Broadway and had to garner the Pulitzer before a Broadway producer and theater would take a chance on it. Its use of the cultural and ethnic epithet "hillbilly" is just as reprehensible as the use of any other such epithet about any other such minority group. Its demands on the stamina and time commitment of an audience make it a production that is more likely to be endured rather than simply enjoyed. Its use of dialect writing which is often less than perfect also makes it unlikely to be admired by the general American audience and more likely to be perceived by such an audience as another depiction of "those poor, ignorant hillbillies". I can say that I am glad I read it since it is alleged to depict the history of Eastern Kentucky albeit that depiction is less than perfect. It is a piece of the greater puzzle of the literature of Appalachia and Eastern Kentucky and it is not the first piece of literature to be well received by some small, perhaps previously prejudiced, portion of the general public and less well by Appalachian audiences. I would not bet ten cents that it will ever be produced again anywhere in America. Don't waste your time reading it unless you are a theater buff who loves to read all scripts or an Appalachian scholar who loves to read and study the entire body of Appalachian Literature.
I would also like to thank Millie Perdue who located this script and gifted it to me because of my expressed interest in reading it. Thanks, Millie!
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