Toni Press-Coffman

Trucker Rhapsody & Other Plays Toni Press-Coffman

The five highly topical plays in this collection by Toni Press-Coffman have aged well and remain remarkably relevant to many of the most divisive issues that still face us as a society-in ways more encouraging than not. These plays explore the nature of idealism, especially its distinctively American forms-where it comes from, how it is tested, how we lose it or temper it, and what saving graces may come to take its place. We can still learn from the student civil rights activists, draft resisters, and soldiers who, like their president, found themselves mired in the Vietnam war and its aftermath; from what inspired those who committed violence as well as those who tried to stop it during the 1992 Los Angeles riots; from the intentional martyrdom of those on United Flight 93. Toni Press's characters, with all their flaws, don't take easy ways out or accept easy answers to the moral questions life poses. They do prove themselves capable of change, insight, compassion, and quiet, imitable heroisms well within our range. We finish these plays feeling, ah, now, we can get started.