The Moonshot Tape & A Poster of the Cosmos

by Lanford Wilson

THE MOONSHOT TAPE. Having come home to visit her mother, who has been placed in a nursing home, Diane, now a well-known writer, is being interviewed for the local newspaper. Only she speaks. Her remarks are in answer to such questions as where she gets the ideas for her stories; whether her youth in Mountain Grove influenced her work; and why she decided to leave home. At first obliging and matter-of-fact, Diane gradually begins to reveal more than her questioner might have bargained for a childhood marred by the loss of her father and her mother's coldness; the promiscuity she was driven to in search of the love and concern that were denied her at home; and, most devastating of all, the molestation by her stepfather which shaped her character indelibly and led to the harrowing event she describes at the end of her recital. To the world at large Diane is someone who has shaken off the dust of Mountain Grove and has gone on to bigger and better things. To herself, however, it is painfully clear that she is what her earlier life ordained because no one ever really leaves the place from which they came. (1 woman.) A POSTER OF THE COSMOS. The place is a Manhattan police station, where a young man, Tom, is being interrogated after having created a disturbance at the hospital where his friend and lover has just died from AIDS. Although only Tom speaks, it is clear that the flood of memories that bursts forth is triggered by the uncomprehending questions of the policemen who now watch him in stony silence. At first he is defensive and impatient with his questioners' inability to understand his behavior, but gradually, as he recalls his time with his lost friend, the depth of their feeling andcommitment for each other emerges. Recalling a host of "little" details, Tom creates a telling portrait of two human beings who must come to understand themselves as individuals before they can comprehend their relationship to each other much less their position relative to society at large. Sometimes poignant, sometimes harrowing, Tom's deeply felt words also make it clear that the guilt and remorse he feels should, in truth, be shared by all who do not try to understand or pledge themselves to overcome this terrible pestilence has brought so much loss and suffering to our times. (1 man.)"

Genres: Plays, Theatre

72 pages, Paperback

First published June 29, 1995

About the author

Lanford Wilson was an American playwright, considered one of the founders of the Off-Off-Broadway theater movement. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1980, was elected in 2001 to the Theater Hall of Fame, and in 2004 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Reviews

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

was thinking about this recently and i always forget the title. i did a 10-minute cut of a poster of the cosmos for dramatic interpretation in forensics when i was in 9th or 10th grade and rereading it makes me absolutely shocked that anyone let me perform it, i was one million years too young to be doing all that