Three Plays

Deeply-rooted in Southern culture, Three Plays: Lawing and Jawing, Forty Yards, and Woofing is a humorous look at the Black experience from three distinct perspectives. From a cantankerous judge to a stubborn husband, each story highlights the minutia and pressures of the daily grind.

The first play, Lawing and Jawing, follows a Georgia judge as he engages with petty criminals and innocent bystanders. Regardless of guilt, each person is susceptible to his temperamental style of justice. In Forty Yards, a collegiate football game sparks a lively exchange between opposing players and fans, while Woofing centers a headstrong husband and his disgruntled wife.

Although disparate stories, each play is connected by Hurston's signature style and prose. By featuring regional speech and customs, she creates relatable characters in authentic scenarios. Like most of her catalog, the author depicts a genuine slice of life that's familiar yet engaging.

With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Three Plays: Lawing and Jawing, Forty Yards, and Woofing is both modern and readable.

Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) was a prolific writer and anthropologist who depicted the cultural nuances of the African American experience. Informed by her Southern upbringing, Hurston's work often explores race, spirituality and self-liberation. In 1921, she published her first story "John Redding Goes to Sea," which appeared in Stylus, a literary magazine at Howard University. The author's career spanned more than 30 years and produced multiple plays, essays and novels including Their Eyes Were Watching God. Hurston was a central figure in the Harlem Renaissance and inspired a generation of writers including Pulitzer Prize winner, Alice Walker.