Passions of the Soul by
Set in an upscale apartment in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Passions of the Soul a dream play book-ended by two scenes from waking life. In scene one, Crystal tells Ethan about her inability to finish her PhD thesis and her anxieties concerning her sister, Lulu, who just got out of rehab and is coming over to make amends the next day. In scene two, Crystal dreams that Lulu is accompanied with a dwarf, Gerhard, for...
Set in an upscale apartment in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Passions of the Soul a dream play book-ended by two scenes from waking life. In scene one, Crystal tells Ethan about her inability to finish her PhD thesis and her anxieties concerning her sister, Lulu, who just got out of rehab and is coming over to make amends the next day. In scene two, Crystal dreams that Lulu is accompanied with a dwarf, Gerhard, for whom she develops an immediate antipathy which masks a deeper attraction. When Crystal sees Ethan and Lulu making eyes at each other she threatens to get her butcher knife, storms out of the room, but presently reappears with a platter of meatloaf in which the butcher knife is prominently stuck. During dinner Crystal learns that Ethan told Lulu and Gerhard about her inability to finish her PhD thesis. And when Gerhard tells Crystal that she's unable to finish her thesis because she doubts the core of herself, Crystal erupts in hysteria. Ethan tries to calm her but winds up choking her. Gerhard jumps on Ethan and pulls him off Crystal. And while Ethan is being comforted by Lulu, Crystal opens a bottle of champagne and beings a drunken debauch with Gerard. Ethan and Lulu then start making out passionately on the couch. When Lulu balks and starts to leave, Ethan, crazed at the possibility of her loss, chokes her to death. And when Gerard attacks Ethan, Crystal stabs Gerhard in the back with her butcher knife. In scene three, Crystal wakes up screaming and is comforted by Ethan. In relating her dream Crystal realizes that the seemingly evil but somehow holy dwarf, with his reference to Georg Croddeck's The Book of the It, provided the key which will enable her to finish her PhD thesis and weeps uncontrollably as she realizes the depth of her love for Lulu.