Three Plays

About the Book

Art is, should be, “like molten lead poured into your ears” (Cannibals). If it isn’t, it has probably failed, for art—like truth—is not easy nor does it cater to the fainthearted. Yet underlining all art is the real joy of humanity, and any artist who concentrates on the facts of truth without illustrating the joy of illumination is also lacking. Ethard Van Stee is not lacking. Indeed, his strength as a writer centers firmly on his real understanding of community, of how the community can come together to celebrate the truth, or how it can often congeal in a collective and festering misunderstanding that ostracizes truth. Ultimately, though, the joy must be present if we are finally to perceive God’s will.

Sheila Tombe, Associate Professor,
University of South Carolina, Beaufort

Van Stee has written a passionate indictment of a time and place that has enthralled and infuriated many of us who have come late to a land of incredible beauty and promise and meanness and ignorance, suspicious and hostile to anything new and different, especially any Art not light and frothy family entertainment. As you read these wonderful works about ancient Greeks and 19th century Southerners, welcome to Beaufort, South Carolina in the twenty-first century.

Jon Sharp, Artistic Director
Beaufort Repertory Company

About the Author

Ethard Wendel Van Stee lives in Beaufort, South Carolina.

In addition to The Plays he has written two novels, Moira’s Scythe and The Remarkable Life of Frances Emily Steele. A third, The Frances Diaries, is due out in 2002. His documentary I Didn’t Come from Nowhere will appear in late 2001.