Play (4 Acts) by Ralph C Hamm III
(Paperback 6 x 9, $12.95, 120 pages)
The Tinderbox, a play in 4 acts by Ralph C Hamm III, was originally written in 1979 and inspired by a poem of the same name. The last stanza is the perfect epigram to this universal story of family strife and family dysfunction:
“So, you want to build a home!
Is your foundation sunk on stone?
Because, if life doesn’t settle like it should;
time will find a tinderbox where a family once stood…
gone, gone house of wood.”
Set in a lower middle class neighborhood in a Massachusetts, industrial, city in August 1961; where big business has moved out. The fabric of the city, and the family, are growing old and decaying. Randall Conrad’s search for a home for his family has lead him here.
This could be any industrial city in the US and is just as relevant today as the day it was written.
