Shawl and Prairie du Chien

About this book

The Shawl which opened to critical and popular acclaim is about a smalltime mystic out to bilk a bereaved woman out of her inheritance. In his review of the New Theatre Companys presentation of The Shawl in Chicago Richard Christiansen called the play a beautifully crafted piece of work with a sharp hurting edge. . . . His Mamets spinning of the yarn . . . is ingenious and his control of the sounds and rhythms of dialogue has never been more awesome. . . . An exquisitely tooled chamber drama. In Prairie du Chien a railroad car speeding through the Wisconsin night is the setting for a violent story of obsessive jealousy murder and suicide punctuated by the camaraderie of a friendly card game exploding into a moment of menace.