Synopsis

Abundance

Abundance $13

Buy Kindle Edition

Beth Henley

Published by Dramatists Play Service

3 Male 2 Female

Bess Johnson and Macon Hill are mail-order brides who meet while waiting for their husbands to pick them up to start life in a small town in the Wyoming Territory in the 1860s

Bess is a romantic while Macon Hill is exuberant and determined about getting on with a life in the West, one that promises to be full of possibility

The husbands arrive. Bess, expecting Mike Flynn, gets his brother, Jack. Macon's husband is William Curtis, a widower with one eye and a scarred face

Life becomes very difficult for Bess and Jack, and Bess is constantly abused and totally unappreciated. They struggle - and fail - to make ends meet

On the other hand, Macon is hardly tolerant of William, although the couple is affluent. One Christmas Eve, in a rage, Jack burns down the cabin

Macon and William take the couple in and start living together for a longer time than expected. Bess and Macon, having forged a strong bond, decide that some day they will strike out on their own, though Macon is reluctant to actually do so

Some time later, while celebrating their mutual wedding anniversaries, Jack and Macon become lovers at the same time Bess is abducted by Indians! Macon, Jack and Will continue to live together over the years, believing that Bess has been killed

However, Bess returns, having escaped death by becoming assimilated into Indian life, and now seems incapable of resuming a normal life. During her absence, the fortunes of Macon and Will have greatly diminished

Bess agrees to tell the story of her abduction and escape for publication and the lecture circuit. With the help of a professor, she becomes the country's hottest sensation with this dramatic - and embellished - tale

Jack develops a new love for her, while Macon and Will separate and fail miserably at their new business pursuits

Many years later as Bess is getting ready to retire and Macon is ready to die, the women reconcile as they muse over how they have and have not "savored the boundlessness of it all"

"Abundance" sometimes has the tone of a rambunctious tongue-in-cheek Twain story, with echoes of Thomas Berger's Little Big Man" ~ NY Times

"a real treat " ~ The New Yorker

Browse Library

About Stageplays

Stageplays offers you the largest collection of Plays & Musicals in the world.

Based in the UK and the USA, we’ve been serving the online theatre community since the last century. We’re primarily a family-run business and several of us also work in professional theatre.

But we’re all passionate about theatre and we all work hard to share that passion with you and the world’s online community.

Subscribe to our theatre newsletter

We'll email you regular details of new plays and half-price special offers on a broad range of theatre titles.

Shipping

We can deliver any play in print to any country in the world - and we ship from both the US and the UK.

© 2010 - 2024 Stageplays, Inc.