cover photograph by Liz Lauren
“Much as, say, Sofia Coppola's Lost in
Translation was an excellent movie about jet lag, this is an excellent play
about culture shock. And about making your way as a stranger in a strange land.
Like the Coen brothers (who love this same human and physical landscape),
Carter satirizes the good people of the Upper Midwest while celebrating their
fundamental decency ”
Chris Jones, The Chicago Tribune
“Several tall, young, slender African men bearing beaming smiles and the
slightest hint of ritual scars on their foreheads strolled through the lobby of
the Victory Gardens Theater on Sunday night. They were the real "lost boys" of
Sudan -- victims of the horrific civil wars that raged in that enormous,
oil-rich country from 1983 to 2005, leaving the population decimated. Now
twentysomething, and residents of Chicago, the men had come to watch playwright
Lonnie Carter's immensely imaginative, linguistically dizzying, tragicomic
rendering of their history. To be sure, it's a fantasia rather than a
documentary, but one that captures the essence of their experiences in a
uniquely theatrical way.”
Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun-Times
“THE LOST BOYS OF SUDAN turns out to be more
joyous than the title might suggest...theater sometimes can do what
documentaries sometimes can't - tell stories with the power of poetry, metaphor
and music...all the musical language in Lonnie Carter's script. There's a
palpable sense of magical realism in his play.”
David Hawley, Pioneer Press (Minneapolis)
“Playwright Carter says that his script is
'hip-hop infused,' and it is, at times. But mostly, I felt it was in the great
tradition of English verse that moves from Shakespeare and Marlowe to Ntozake
Shange and beyond.”
Paul Thompson, BroadwayWorld.com
4 M, 4 F
I S B N 978-0-88145-443-7
$14.95
read the first 15 pages of the play on line