New York Premiere
Inspired by the 1918 killing of Hampton Smith in Brooks County, Georgia which prompted the holocaust lynchings of many of its Negro Citizens.
The play is set in the American South in the first years of the 20th century. Dalcoe, it would seem, is picking up the metaphor found in the Abel Meeropol poem "Strange Fruit," as popularized by Billie Holiday: "Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh/ Then the sudden smell of burning flesh."
This play has three characters: Hayes Turner, Mary Turner and Sidney Johnson. All three find themselves with a noose around their necks. And since much of "A Small Oak Tree Runs Red" is set in purgatory, all three are variously condemned to relive the moment of their "bulging eyes and twisted mouth."
