¶ … Blue' by Beth Henley

The one-act play 'Am I Blue' is set in New Orleans in 1968 and revolves around two young characters who meet in a bar. Ashbe is a lonely sixteen-year-old female and meets John Polk, an eighteen-year-old college boy, who is sitting in a bar waiting for a prostitute his friends have set him up with. Ashbe and John are both kicked out of the bar and go to her apartment, where they talk. In their talk they share a bond of understanding that comes mainly from their loneliness.

In their interactions we also see the naivety of both the characters. When Ashbe learns that John is a virgin she offers to sleep with him, an offer that John turns down. Ashbe's immaturity becomes more obvious when she says that she would have John's baby.

The characteristic of the play that was most noticeable was its realism. The action of the play revolved around a chance meeting of two strangers that shared a small bond. This meeting was not a significant encounter and the value of the play is not based on the events of the play.

Instead, it is just a moment in two people's lives captured realistically.

The characters in the play are also not especially significant in any way. They are just average people.

The major skill of Henley may be that she captures a scene with real truth, rather than the 'dressing up' of so many plays where people are presented as either tragic or perfect. The interactions of the characters are not especially significant but are still sweet and funny and sad, all at the same time and are just as interesting to watch as any other.

The play essentially captures a small sequence of events and portrays it realistically. The message, if any, is that real life is just as interesting as fiction, that real people are just as interesting as fictional characters and that everyday human characteristics are as interesting to examine as major significant events.