The Baltimore Waltz and Other Plays

In this remarkable 1992 play, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, author Paula Vogel goes inside the soul of her central character, a woman caring for a brother who has AIDS. Exhausted, the woman sleeps and dreams that she is the one with the incurable disease, and she's dragging her healthy brother along on one last grand tour of Europe to see all the wonderful things she'd always longed to see--and to find a mysterious doctor who may have the cure for her illness. Many scenes have the peculiar logic and sidestepping transitions of a dream. The reader's imagination is called upon to supply sets and costumes for the many strange and wonderful locales of the play. Vogel supplies the empathy and heartbreaking love that only a sister can have for a precious baby brother who is slipping away between her helpless fingers. Also in this collection are four early Vogel works: Hot 'N' Throbbin, And Baby Makes Seven, The Oldest Profession, and Desdemona.