←Recommendations of Blood and Coal Dust

What a wonderful piece of writing. Like all great one acts, secrets are revealed one at a time, like peeling an onion. Characters and dialogue are top-notch, each with their own unique voice even though they're from the same zip code. It's a compelling story I'd love to see produced.

Some of my favorite Arthur Jolly plays can be described as "exquiteitely dark." Here darkness is far more literal but equally exquisite. Meant to be performed by the low flame of an oil lamp, two miners are trapped by a cave-in as oxygen and hope run low. All they can do it wait and wonder: Will they be found? Is anyone looking? Who's fault was it? The pressure builds as panic and paranoia mount. Complex characterization illuminate their outside lives, enhancing helplessness and hope. Riveting.

I saw this two-hander performed at the 2024 OOB Festival. It begins in the stress and suspense of a coal-mine collapse as Carl and Thomas wait for rescue, and somehow ups the stakes from there! The first reveal is sobering, and the second reveal will send a literal chill down your back. Produce this play!

Your chest will tighten up just a bit when you read (or see) Arthur M. Jolly's, Blood and Coal Dust. That involuntary experience will speak to the power of the play. And before long, you'll be down there with Carl and Thomas, questioning and unnerved like the former but praying for the poise and patience of the latter. Ultimately, you'll be inspired enough to ask yourself who the Tom is in your life, before you come up with the best answer: it's you. Prove it. Thank you, Mr. Jolly.

This play puts me right there alongside young Carl and old-timer Thomas in a coal mine cave-in. Thomas’s story of surviving another cave-in, and what may have happened during those twenty-two days, adds the perfect amount of suspense to this story. I love plays that leave the audience wondering what will become of the characters, and BLOOD and COAL DUST does just that as Carl blows out the lamp, plunging them into darkness. End of Play. Perfect.

Wow. This short play is as tough as nails. I hope like hell that it gets its due; as much as I hope the kid makes it out to Monterey.

Two very different viewpoints of the same harrowing situation frame the tense back and forth between two men trapped where neither wants to be. As Mr. Jolly slowly and seamlessly unfolds the underpinnings of their situation, it feels a bit like the air they are trying to conserve. Breathe deeply, while you can.

The tension in this short play is set forth at the outset as these two trapped men contemplate their fate in the dark, lit only by a lamp that could signal more danger at any moment. In the hands of any other playwright it could terrifying, but Arthur M. Jolly has shown me so many different ways in his writings his ability to create the suspense that keeps you fixated on what will happen to Thomas and Carl, as well as how they anticipate what could happen. I found myself holding my breath, waiting to hear...