52 pages • 1 hour read
August WilsonA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Act Summaries & Analyses
Set in Pittsburgh in 1969, the play takes place in a restaurant. The menu is posted on a board, along with the number 651, which was the winner yesterday in the daily numbers game (numbers running, also called bolita or policy racket, is an illegal lottery system). The restaurant is small and has a counter with four stools, three booths, and a pay phone. It sits across the street from Lutz’s Meat Market and West’s Funeral Home. Wolf, a diner regular, enters from the phone booth, but the phone rings repeatedly, and he keeps answering it. Memphis, the middle-aged man who owns the restaurant, enters and tells Wolf to stop using his phone to run the numbers game, because his lawyer might be trying to get through. Wolf argues, and the two men discuss the merit of the numbers game. Memphis mentions that the number 651 has won twice that week and that it was the number that L. D., a man who is now dead, had always played. Risa, a young woman who cooks and waits tables, enters from the kitchen. Risa has deliberately scarred her legs with a razor blade to deter unwanted male attention.
By August Wilson
Fences
Fences
August Wilson
Gem of the Ocean
Gem of the Ocean
August Wilson
Joe Turner's Come and Gone
Joe Turner's Come and Gone
August Wilson
King Hedley II
King Hedley II
August Wilson
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
August Wilson
Seven Guitars
Seven Guitars
August Wilson
The Piano Lesson
The Piano Lesson
August Wilson
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection