Part 1—The Woods

Scene 1—The Woods

Scene 2—The Cabin

 Intermission

 Part 2—The Lake Scene 1—A Cleared Place Scene 2—The Lake

Part 2—The Lake

Scene 1—A Cleared Place

Scene 2—The Lake

 The action takes place in Indian Territory, now Oklahoma, in the year 1906 Settings designed by Lewis Barrington Costumes designed by Gertrude Brows Sets and costumes executed by the Laboratory Theater Workshop Property Man Morton Brown 

Lewis Barrington

Gertrude Brows

Morton Brown

The Director and Actors are deeply grateful to Mme. Maria Ouspenskaya for the invaluable assistance she gave in the preparation of this production.

FOREWORD

This play came to us late in the season of 1926-1927. Produced by George Auerbach at the American Laboratory Theater in New York, it attracted some attention during April and May, and survived without serious damage the ordeal of criticism by several of the front-line reviewers. With two or three exceptions, however, the notices showed little understanding of what Mr. Riggs was trying to do.

That is one reason why I am presuming to add these few words to the dramatist’s text. Big Lake is that rarest of things, a poetic drama that is at once poetry and drama. To one of his later plays Mr. Riggs has given the title Sump’n Like Wings, and I can think of no words that so accurately describe what I felt when, over a year ago, I read the manuscript of Big Lake. There is a winged lightness in the words that the poet puts into the mouths of his young people, an ecstasy born of the sheer joy of being alive. How poor a thing is the mere “observation” of a clever 

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