Brainpeople (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780881458329)

A wealthy woman invites two strangers to join her in a strange feast commemorating the death of her parents. Mayannah has done this every year but her dark purpose remains unclear. All that will change tonight when two damaged souls find their way to her table. Taking place in a not-so-distant future, the sounds of a war-torn Los Angeles fill the air. Tensions rise, true colors are revealed and the main course is not the only thing with claws...

"... Rivera's teasingly engrossing stage reality ... It's a return to the postapocalyptic landscape this most magical-realist of major American playwrights has explored in such compelling works as MARISOL and REFERENCES TO SALVADOR DALI MAKE ME HOT, among his many plays ... Rivera eschews external surreal symbols this time to delve directly into the chaos of his characters' disordered minds. The result is both an engrossing descent into the traumatized inner realms of three very different, isolated women ... Each flight of concentrated poetry is vividly written ... Rivera has created an intriguing and evocative drama with the social and psychological terrors that have leapt from the grottoes of the women's minds." --Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Chronicle

"... This real-time drama ... unfolds beautifully and offers great insight into how basic human nature desires can go bizarrely astray when the world is falling apart." --Giattina, San Francisco Bay Guardian