Ramp / Mushroom

In the plays collected here—Ramp and Mushroom—Pulitzer Prize finalist Eisa Davis mingles modes of myth and speculation, documentary and fiction in two plays about family, desire, restorative justice, ecological sustainability, and immigration amongst the working class. Ramp adapts the foundational Egyption saga of Isis / Osiris and sets on a near-future airline ramp, where siblings Isis, Osiris, Seth, and Nepthys throw luggage on planes and bicker about our thorny, precipitate futurity: should change be fast or gradual? Can the ecological revolution we require for survival produce ease and peace if it’s rooted in violence? Is the path to utopia brutal? Must it be? Mushroom centers on the lives, loves, and working conditions of the Mexican and Central American mushroom-pickers in and around the town of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, where over 40% of all the mushrooms we eat in this country come from. Through a series of intersecting narratives traversed by English, Spanish, K'iche' and Malayalam speakers, Mushroom considers a workplace dispute that has serious ramifications for multiple immigrant families, mapping how compassion and justice might intersect.