'Bad Penny,' 'Suddenly Last Summer,' 'Desert Sunrise' and 'Just Like White People'

"A bad penny always turns up" is a platitude that packs an unexpected existential punch, at least in the sardonic world of New York playwright Mac Wellman. In Wellman's Obie Award-winning short play, the titular "Bad Penny" opens a portal to the metaphysical abyss that yawns beneath the banality of a summer's day in Central Park -- and, by extension, beneath a society shaped by clichéd thought.

August 8, 2008