Short Eyes (Masterplots II: Drama, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Miguel Piñero
- First Published: 1975
- Type of Plot: Realism
- Time of Work: The 1970’s
- Setting: House of Detention, New York Prison
- Principal Characters: Juan, Julio “Cupcakes,”, Paco, Ice, Omar, El Raheem, Longshoe, Clark Davis, Mr. Nett, Captain Allard, Mr. Brown
- Genres: Realism, Drama
- Subjects: Justice, Prisoners, Prisons, Race, Crime or criminals, Ethnic groups, Violence, Captivity, Torture, Isolation, Societies, Survival
- Locales: New York
The Play
A two-act play with an epilogue, Short Eyes takes place in a New York prison. The play’s action covers the course of one day in a cell-block dayroom of the prison, and the audience is introduced to the grind of prison life, the characters sharing the dayroom, and the relationships among these prisoners. The play opens with a traditional roll call, as the prisoners’ disembodied voices call out their locations for dayroom assignments. As Ice, Omar, Longshoe, El Raheem, Paco, Juan, and Cupcakes enter the “B” side of the dayroom, the play begins to...
[The entire page is 1984 words long]
