Len Jenkin

Limbo Tales Len Jenkin

In the first play in LIMBO TALES, HIGHWAY, a man suddenly decides to drive to his girlfriend's house, which is 200 miles away. He becomes obsessed with the thought that each car that passes may be his girlfriend coming to visit him - and as he begins to lose touch with time and place he becomes convinced that he has moved back to another century, another civilization. In the short INTERMEZZO, a Master of Ceremonies announces, in hilarious detail, all the exotic acts that will not be on the bill that evening. In the final play, HOTEL, a down-on-his-luck encyclopedia salesman sits in a flea-bag hotel room, eating Chinese food which is delivered by a disembodied arm, while listening to the squabbling of his neighbors and contemplating the aridity of his limbo-like existence. "Len Jenkin not only has a vivid imagination, but he also has an artist's command of his craft." -New York Times "Len Jenkin has an unusual talent for reaching into shadowy places in the human psyche and coming up with evocative images." -Journal American (Seattle) "Jenkin's plays have plenty of plot and delicious language, but the transience of experience is the main theme that runs through Jenkin's work. He manipulates theatrical illusions with a playful manner that recalls Jorge Luis Borges, to disguise meditations on mortality." -Village Voice (New York) "Jenkin explores many of the raw nerve ends in our society; the deep need to believe an absolute, while at the same time reveling in the gratification of the present; the difference between titillation and satisfaction; the bizarre nature of reality; and the real nature of the bizarre." -Times (Seattle)