Balm in Gilead

“Mind your own sweetheart; you live longer…” 

In a shabby, barebones, all-night café-diner, the city’s flotsam and jetsam forlornly wash in. Prostitutes, bums, dealers, addicts, dreamers, runaways, the desperate… the lost.   

Amongst this meshing of the city’s underbelly, a collection of colourful characters emerge, including Joe, a cynical, ill-informed, small-time dealer in more trouble than he knows; and Darlene, a wide-eyed, naive newcomer, getting more attention than she wants. 

Together, they might have a shot at escaping the circular, squalid turmoil of life at the edge, but can they do so before it engulfs them? 

Originally set in 1960s Manhattan, Lanford Wilson’s groundbreaking play paints a pulsating mosaic of overlapping and interrelating speeches as characters and stories buzz and blend together around a common centre. Not only does Wilson starkly illuminate a bleak and terrifying world of young exiles and outcasts in New York’s upper Broadway area, but he simultaneously challenges our expectations of the rules and form of theatre. 

Stuart Wood and Cameron Thorne direct this version, reset to heady 1980s America, performed by undergraduate students of Bristol School of Acting. 

Balm in Gilead 

By Lanford Wilson 

Directed by Stuart Wood and Cameron Thorne 

Lighting design by Hugo Dodsworth 

Sound design by Joseff Harris