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The Mound Builders | Introduction

Lanford Wilson’s The Mound Builders was first produced on February 2, 1975, in New York City at the Circle Repertory Company. It was directed by Wilson’s long-time collaborator and co-founder of the ‘‘Circle Rep,’’ Marshall W. Mason. The play explores the conflicts between a team of visiting archeologists who are excavating several early Mississippian mounds and a local man who hopes to make his fortune by developing the land where the mounds are located. As the archeologists ponder and celebrate the dignity of the pre-Columbian people who built the mounds, they overlook the humanity of the people alive around them. The play is presented as a series of flashbacks, as August Howe, the chief archeologist, dictates notes about his slides from a recently ended expedition.

Wilson has said several times that The Mound Builders is his own favorite among his plays. It has not been his most successful play, either commercially or critically, in part because the issues and connections between the characters are so complicated and subtle that audiences miss much of what is going on. Wilson revised the play for a Circle Rep revival in 1986, deleting the character of Kirsten, August’s daughter, but reviewers were still lukewarm. Readers of the published play (which is the 1975 version) have been able to better appreciate the play’s richness. Though not currently in print as a separate volume, The Mound Builders is part of the collection Lanford Wilson: Collected Works Volume II 1970–1983.

The Mound Builders Summary

Act 1
As the curtain rises on The Mound Builders, Professor August Howe, an archeologist, is alone in his office in Urbana, Illinois, looking at slides of ‘‘last summer’s expedition’’ and dictating notes into a microphone. He shows a lake, a house, and an archeological dig. August and his slides will make frequent brief appearances throughout the play as a way to separate one scene from another. There are no breaks within the two acts; instead, short episodes merge into each other as flashbacks, illuminating and expanding August’s dictated notes. In this opening scene, August shows several slides in succession as the audience hears sounds of a car stopping, and lights go up on another part of the stage to reveal the house where the archeologist lived. As August finishes his last line, Cynthia and Kirsten come down the stairs and begin the next scene.

Cynthia and Kirsten come to the door to welcome Dan and Jean, who have just arrived. Chad is finishing up a bit of maintenance, and August tells the group that his sister Delia is on her way from Cleveland. As Dan and Jean unload their car, the relationships among the characters become clear: August is married to Cynthia, and Kirsten is their daughter; Dan is August’s assistant and Jean’s husband; Chad, the caretaker, is the son of the man who owns the house. This will be the fourth summer that August and Dan have worked on this site, excavating mounds built by pre-Columbian people known as the Early Mississippians or the Mound Builders, who lived in great cities near the Mississippi River. This will also be their last chance to find artifacts in the mounds, because a new man-made lake and a planned interstate highway will soon cover the entire area.

Another scene follows with August showing more slides, many taken by Cynthia, the unofficial photographer for the project. He speaks mockingly of the townspeople from Blue Shoals, of the archeology students who helped with the digging, and of Cynthia and Kirsten, from whom he is now estranged. In the next series of flashbacks, the relationships between the characters are shown to be more strained than was revealed previously. Delia arrives, against her will, and meets Dan and Jean for the first time. She is angry about the care she was getting in Cleveland and angry about being sent to her brother, but she is clearly too ill to be on her own. Dan and Jean have never met Delia before, though both are familiar with her... » Complete The Mound Builders Summary