Synopsis
Extremities by William Mastrosimone. Extremities contains the seeds of all the things that interest me as a writer – politics, ethics and morals and psychology. A woman alone, a man enters, the play begins. From the very first, we see a contagion of violence pass from Raul, to Marjorie, to Terry, to Patricia. It grows in the language and in the action like a germ culture. The monster in all of us is just under the skin. Scratch the skin deep enough and it come leaping out full blown. In order to survive Raul, Marjorie has to become like Raul. To do that is to lose herself. The victim and victimizer, the cager and the caged, form each other. Thus the psychological play leads to the moral play – How does one deal with evil without becoming evil oneself? Marjorie has a choice – to act or not to act.