Eden | |
---|---|
Written by | Steve Carter |
Date premiered | March 3, 1976 |
Place premiered | St. Mark's Playhouse New York City |
Original language | English |
Series | The Caribbean Trilogy: Eden Nevis Mountain Dew Dame Lorraine |
Subject | A recent Caribbean immigrant discovers that his daughter has fallen in love with an uneducated African-American man from the rural South. |
Genre | Drama |
Setting | 1920s; San Juan Hill section of New York City |
Eden is a 1976 play by American playwright Steve Carter. Set in the 1920s, it is the first of Carter's Caribbean trilogy. Eden explores intra-racial conflicts between recent immigrants from the Caribbean and the African-American population. [1] The West Coast premiere of this critically acclaimed play received five Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards. [2]
Set in the San Juan Hill section of New York City in 1927, Joseph Barton, a recent Caribbean immigrant and follower of Marcus Garvey discovers to his horror that his daughter is keeping company with an uneducated African American man from the rural South.
Eden is loosely based on the story of the playwright's parents. Horace Carter, Sr., a native of Virginia, and his wife, Carmen, who was born in New York of Caribbean descent, lived in New York City at the time of their son's birth. [3] [4]
In 1985, Carter wrote the screenplay A Time Called Eden, based on his play. It was set to go into production the following year, however, to date, the project remains unproduced. [4] [7]
In 2008, Barbara Montgomery from the original cast, staged a reading of Eden with the Negro Ensemble Company as part of The NEC Classic Playreading Series. [8]
Carl Winston Lumbly is an American actor. He is known for his role as television's first Black superhero M.A.N.T.I.S., Dick Hallorann in Doctor Sleep, NYPD detective Marcus Petrie on the CBS police drama Cagney & Lacey, CIA agent Marcus Dixon on the ABC espionage drama series Alias, and as the voice of J'onn J'onnz / Martian Manhunter in the animated series Justice League and Justice League Unlimited, as well as the direct-to-video animated film Justice League: Doom and the video game Injustice: Gods Among Us. Lumbly is also known for his roles on The CW's Arrowverse as J'onn J'onnz's father, M'yrnn, on Supergirl from 2017 until 2019, and in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) installments The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021) and Captain America: Brave New World (2024) as Isaiah Bradley, the first Black super-soldier.
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Horace Edward "Steve" Carter Jr. was an American playwright, best known for his plays involving Caribbean immigrants living in the United States.
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Nevis Mountain Dew is a 1978 play by American playwright steve carter. Set in the 1950s, it is the second of Carter's Caribbean trilogy. Nevis Mountain Dew explores the subject of euthanasia involving the patriarch of an affluent family who is confined to an iron lung.
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Even during the best of not-so-recent times for black theater, plays tended to focus on black characters in a white world and didn't as a rule deal with prejudices among blacks themselves. But "Eden", a play by Steve Carter which will have its West Coast premiere at the Los Angeles Actors Theater.
Given the choice between the play that never warms up and the play that keeps boiling over, I'll take the latter. Particularly when it's as well-acted as Steve Carter's "Eden" at the Los Angeles Actors Theater.