6/01/01 

In her first published play, Rebecca Basham has garnered the Kennedy Center’s 2000 Michael Kanin National Student Playwriting Award for Lot’s Daughters. Set among the Appalachian foothills of Eastern Kentucky during the Fall of 1944, the play tells the story of two young girls who form a friendship that deepens to love.

Although orphaned, Gertie and Waincey Cobb have established a comfortable home for themselves below the hilltop cemetery that contains their parent’s remains. Waincey, at 25, has provided steadily for his sister, eight years his junior; but as America goes to war, he has begun to look to the future. Deciding that the holler has little to offer them, Waincey has enlisted with the hopes of saving enough money to move them to Louisville on his return. Worried that his sister may be lonely during his months abroad, he decides to marry quickly, and the wedding is not even consummated before he is gone.

Susannah Hicks, Waincey’s bride, is closer to Gertie’s age than that of her husband. From a family much poorer than the Cobb’s, Susannah has contended with a drunker father and an endless number of younger siblings to feed. After her hasty betrothal in exchange for Waincey’s pig, "Old Tommy," and the short ceremony that leaves her in a house of strangers, she has a hard time getting used to abundance. When she tucks food into her pockets, Gertie must promise her that there will be enough.

After Waincey leaves, Gertie and Susannah quickly become relaxed in each other’s company and discover themselves in unfamiliar emotional territory. Gertie takes Susannah down to the river to clean up and their innocent touching sparks a reconsideration both of their relationship and the moral guidelines that have controlled their upbringings. In their isolated surroundings, the girls try to explore their feelings but often discover themselves trapped by thoughts of sin.

The religious leaders of this small community, Brother and Sister Rankin, set much of the tone of the play, even when they are not on stage. It is Brother Rankin who arranges for the marriage of Susannah and Waincey and Sister Rankin who acts as his spiritual cheerleader. In the second act, it is Brother Rankin in an excited and "Hallelujah!"-filled sermon who introduces the significance of the play’s title by telling the biblical story of Lot’s Daughters. Lot lived with his wife and daughters in Sodom, a town that along with Gomorrah, God intended to destroy because of the wickedness of the inhabitants, in particularly because "the men there done set themselves up with other men" (47). Abraham, who had special privileges with God as the Father of the Jewish nation, sought to save the lives of Lot’s family. Angels were sent to rescue them, but the family was instructed not to look back. When Lot’s wife turned to see the annihilation of the cities, she was turned into a pillar of salt. Lot and his two surviving daughters escaped to the desert, but according to Brother Rankin this is when the trouble started because "we all know there ain’t nothin’ more sinful than a woman that ain’t got nothin’ to do but sit and think" (47). The daughters became concerned that they were the only human beings left alive and in Brother Rankin’s sermon they concocted a plan to intoxicate their father in order to impregnate themselves. When the sisters began to show, they became outcasts because it was known that they were bearing their father’s children.

Later, when Gertie and Susannah have returned home, they discuss the service and Lot’s Daughters. Susannah is concerned that the girls are not given names, and this omission makes it difficult for her to picture their faces. In her version of the story, the girls are forced to do their duty by their drunk father. Susannah, as she explains, understands this position well and after her emotional confession, Gertie confesses her love of her brother’s wife.

The play has a number of unique strengths–character development, visually enticing scenery, powerful dialogue–but its treatment of sin in a holiness community is particularly outstanding. As Gertie and Susannah find themselves in a relationship that they have been told is inappropriate, they struggle to understand their feelings and to distinguish between what they have been told is "right" and what they perceive as "wrong." The examples of Brother and Sister Rankin are confusing, at best, but absolute. Susannah has suffered sexual abuse; she has been told and believes that she is to blame. As a sinner, she is dirty, ugly, despised, an outcast. Her "sin" is inextricably bound to her gender. She is "the child of Eve," "temptation in the flesh," "the wickedness that is woman," and she must "do [her] duty for the Lord." Her abusers accept no responsibility for their actions, but instead remind Susannah of the weakness of her female flesh, accusing her of beguiling them.

Although Gertie and Susannah try earnestly to reason through their dilemma, these conversations often end in debates over sin and religion. They often return to the story of Lot’s Daughters and try to evaluate the veracity of the biblical story. As they break free from one sin, that of not attending church for example, they are trapped by another as when Gertie points out that she is "layin’ with [her] brother’s wife" (63). The effectiveness of these scenes lies in the intensity of the dialogue. Within the sparse setting of an old wooden cabin in the hills of Kentucky, these young women are facing questions that their community will not ask or even whisper. They are redefining their spiritual landscape with the limited tools of their experience.

Rebecca Basham, Lot’s Daughters. New York: Samuel French, Inc., 2001. Order the play by Samuel French's online catalogue-- search the page for Basham by last name.

Q: Why did you pick the time period of the 1940s and the setting of Eastern Kentucky to tell this story?

I know this area of the country, and I believe that it would be extremely difficult to live openly as a lesbian there even today. It would have been incomprehensible in the 1940s. Because of the recent proliferation of gays and lesbians in the media, I thought I needed to go back in time to find a period when Gertie and Susannah’s relationship would not only have been more unusual, but would also have been an unknown factor in their community and their lives — there weren’t easy answers or even options such as — Will I now live my life as a lesbian? — Do I just come out? Oh, this is why I’m different. There weren’t any precedents for Gertie and Susannah and living as a couple wasn’t possible for them. I wanted to address issues of love and sexuality outside my own context.

Q: Did you begin with the story of Lot’s Daughters in mind?

I’d had the story of Lot’s Daughters rummaging around my head for quite a while. I’d written the beginnings of a novel, a score of poems, and it just all came together in this play. I think that the "rightness" of the creative process happened for me when the women actually got their own voices through my dialogue.

Q: Was any part of the play unexpected for you?

Susannah’s suicide wasn’t intended. I didn’t have it anywhere in my outline. Originally, Susannah was supposed to run away with Gertie. In fact, I’ve always said that I would never write anything where the woman kills herself. But, as I was writing, Susannah just kept creeping towards the creek. I rewrote the end of that scene ten or eleven times, but I was never happy with it and eventually gave in to the idea that Susannah would rather choose death than choose life under the circumstances that her community requires. It was a very difficult decision for me.

Q: Did you use any other material or writers as inspiration?

Not consciously. I love Loretta Lynn and her rural feminism and secretly listen to "The Best of..." cd when cleaning house. I’ve listened to my relatives from Eastern Kentucky tell a million stories over the years — around the kitchen table with a pot of coffee and a million kids underfoot. I’ve sat in a Holiness church while most of the congregation was talking in tongues, and I’ve wrestled with issues about religion for most of my life.

Q: If you were to write an introduction for the play, what information would you include?

That Lot’s isn’t a lesbian love story; it is a love story about two people who are trapped in circumstances beyond their control. That it’s Man’s perception of God and his interpretation of God that are in question, and that abomination in the name of God is still abomination. Finally, that silence is dangerous and debilitating and is just as much of a crime as committing the actual crime.

Q: Is there anything you would change in the play?

Many things — every time I hear it or see it. But for the most part, I feel that it is "done," and I won’t be doing any major revisions.

Q: How will this work translate to the screen?

With difficulty. I think that basically to translate this to a film script, I will have to forget all of the dialogue from the play and start over. It will be trying to tell the same story without using the words that hold it together. Images, images, images. Because of the amount of dialogue, I think it will be a daunting task.

Author Biography

Rebecca Basham is a native of Louisville, KY, but has resided in Southeast Louisiana since 1980. She is currently finishing her MFA degree in Creative Writing at the University of New Orleans and teaches at Southeastern Louisiana University. Her full length stage play, "Lot's Daughters" won the Michael Kanin National Playwriting Award through the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the American College Theater Festival in 2000. In conjunction with this award, "Lot's Daughters" was also received the William Morris Award, The Samuel French Award, The Dramatist Guild Award, a Sundance Theater Lab Fellowship and an ATHE grant to the University of New Orleans. In addition to these auspices, "Lot's Daughters" was also awarded the Jane Chambers Playwriting Award (student division) in 2000 which is administered through the Women's Writing Program, a subgroup of the Association of Theater in Higher Education. The play has had productions in New Orleans, the Kennedy Center in D.C., Bellingham, WA and will be given its West Coast premier at Diversionary Theater in San Diego in October of 2001. "Lot's Daughters" was recently published by Samuel French, Inc. and is now available to the public. Her other plays include, "Words Between," "Rats Live On No Evil Star," and "Arbeit Macht Frei," which will be produced in New Orleans this November. She is currently working on a full length script entitled, "The Weight of the Straw" which is a dark comedy about women and their relationships with their bodies.