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The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre)

 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre)
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TVTItem
 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre)
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The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre)
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TheKentuckyCycle
 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre)
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The Kentucky Cycle is a 1992 series of plays by Robert Schenkkan.It consists of nine one-act plays that together tell over 200 years of history. The setting is the Appalachians of eastern Kentucky. The plays are organized into two parts. Part I: Masters of the Trade, The Courtship of Morning Star, The Homecoming, Ties That Bind, and God's Great Supper. The time frame runs from 1775 to 1861 and dwells on frontier settlers and homesteaders. A man named Michael Bowen, an escaped indentured servant, kills a trader and steals his guns. He kidnaps, rapes, and enslaves a Cherokee woman, Morning Star. Later his son Patrick takes revenge—but more revenge is to come. Part II: Tall Tales, Fire in the Hole, Which Side Are You On?, and The War on Poverty. These plays run from 1890 to 1975 and concentrate on the effect of coal mining on the region. The Blue Star Mining Company comes to the area and, through underhanded tactics, buys up the whole valley. They establish a ruthlessly exploitative mining operation. In response, local workers attempt to unionize.
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DBTropes
 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_2260cfe3
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Like Father, Like Son
 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_2260cfe3
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Like Father, Like Son: Patrick Bowen commits all the sins his father Michael committed or was planning to commit. He kidnaps a woman and forces her to marry him, he commits two murders, and he rapes Sallie the slave so he can have more slaves to work his land, which was Michael's plan.
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 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_2f6f1a06
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"Shut Up!" Gunshot
 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_2f6f1a06
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"Shut Up!" Gunshot: When Judge Goddard's court hearing in Patrick Bowen's parlor—which is eventually revealed to be about Patrick's bankruptcy—is distracted by Patrick and Grey the bailiff telling War of 1812 stories and singing songs, Judge Goddard fires a pistol into the air to get everyone's attention back. Silus does this in Fire in the Hole when Tommy and Cassius start brawling, during the tense confrontation the morning after Abe was murdered. This prompts Joshua to out his father as the traitor.
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 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_33c2b1e2
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Best Served Cold
 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_33c2b1e2
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Best Served Cold: Jeremiah Talbert's revenge, as he explains explicitly at the end of Ties That Bind. He could have just killed Patrick Bowen for murdering Jeremiah's father and kidnapping and forcibly marrying his sister, but that wouldn't be enough. So he waited 27 years to buy the debt on Patrick's land, taking literally everything Patrick owns and leaving Patrick a sharecropper on what was once his own estate.
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 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_47060811
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Screaming Birth
 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_47060811
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Screaming Birth: Morning Star delivers her first child in a scene where a body double is playing her, screaming with the pain, while the main actress playing Morning Star stands in the foreground and tells how smallpox destroyed her tribe.
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 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_47b21ca6
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Stress Vomit
 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_47b21ca6
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Stress Vomit: In "The Homecoming", Patrick Bowen vomits, after an angry confrontation with his father Michael leads to Patrick stabbing his father to death.
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 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_47bb1101
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Amazing Freaking Grace
 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_47bb1101
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Amazing Freaking Grace: Naturally, it's "Amazing Grace" that the hillbillies are singing when Jed Bowen gets home, having deserted from the war, and walks right up to his grandfather Patrick's in-progress funeral.
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 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_52989fee
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Narrator
 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_52989fee
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Narrator: A narrator is heard at the beginning of each part, establishing the setting.
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 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_67711aa
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Company Town
 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_67711aa
comment
Company Town: After the mining company takes over the land they establish one of these. As is usually the case, the mine is the only employer and the workers get only scrip that they can redeem in the company store.
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 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_74ef476c
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Kneel Before Zod
 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_74ef476c
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Kneel Before Zod: The end of Ties That Bind has Jeremiah force Patrick Bowen to go to his knees and beg, before allowing Patrick to stay on the land that Jeremiah has just foreclosed on as a sharecropper. He does this because he's not just foreclosing on land: It's Personal.
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 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_898ff050
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Villain Protagonist
 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_898ff050
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Villain Protagonist: Michael Bowen, the protagonist of the first couple of plays. He kills a man, employs 18th century germ warfare to exterminate the Cherokee, and kidnaps and rapes one of the few Cherokee to survive.
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 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_99c3dd05
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Lifesaving Misfortune
 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_99c3dd05
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Lifesaving Misfortune: Michael Bowen says that he escaped the massacre of his town by the local Cherokee, because his horse threw a shoe, delaying his return home.
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 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_a1841170
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Generational Saga
 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_a1841170
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Generational Saga: Three Kentucky families over 200 years of Appalachian history. There's the Feuding Families the Bowens and Talberts, one of whom (the Bowens) was started by an Irish immigrant, and who spend nearly a century fighting over the same valley. After the Bowens wind up losing the valley to a mining company they wind up fighting over unionization. Then there's the Biggs family, which forms the local African-American community and began when Bowen patriarch Michael Bowen raped his slave Sallie.
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 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_a2022cc9
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Killed Mid-Sentence
 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_a2022cc9
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Killed Mid-Sentence: A Union colonel says "Why don't you rebels stand up and—", and that is when Jed Bowen's bullet kills him.
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 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_aabe2fb
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Deliberate Values Dissonance
 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_aabe2fb
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Deliberate Values Dissonance: The N-word is used by white people to describe black people, as of course it would have been in 19th and 20th century Kentucky.
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 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_b7042372
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Cycle of Revenge
 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_b7042372
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Cycle of Revenge: This takes up most of Part I. Patrick Bowen murders Joe Talbert and kidnaps his daughter Rebecca into a forced marriage. Jeremiah Talbert then avenges the death of his father by waiting 27 years before foreclosing on Patrick Bowen's land and taking literally everything he owns. Finally, some 70 years after the cycle began, Patrick's grandson Jed Bowen murders both Jeremiah's son Richard Talbert and Jeremiah's grandson Randall, before raping both of Richard's daughters and retaking possession of the land.
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 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_bead8edd
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Injun Country
 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_bead8edd
comment
Injun Country: Kentucky was this in the 1770s. The local Cherokee, acutely aware of the danger that whites pose to their way of life, take action by massacring an entire town. Michael Bowen in return deliberately gives them smallpox-infested blankets, which wipes out the tribe.
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 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_c132c0c5
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I Have No Son!
 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_c132c0c5
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I Have No Son!: Mary Anne does this when her husband Tommy Jackson is revealed as the man who betrayed the union. She also takes back her maiden name. (Immediately after, the other miners murder Tommy.)
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 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_c2fc1ae
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Neck Snap
 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_c2fc1ae
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Neck Snap: Ezekiel Bowen completes his revenge, and wipes out the Talbert family in the male line, when he snaps young Randall Talbert's neck.
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 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_cf92fea8
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Cassandra Truth
 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_cf92fea8
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Cassandra Truth: At the end of Tall Tales, J.T. Wells has an attack of conscience. He tells Mary Anne Rowen that the mining company is ripping her father Jed off, that the mining rights Jed just sold away for a dollar an acre come with millions of dollars of coal under every one of those acres, that not only has the mining company ripped him off but that they will also destroy the land. He then gives the contract back to her and tells her to tear it up. She then goes back to her father and tells him—and Jed does not believe her. Everything J.T. told her comes true, of course, as the mining company turns the hills into a ruin and the Bowens eventually lose their land.
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 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_d29a6629
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Death by Childbirth
 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_d29a6629
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Death by Childbirth: Rebecca Bowen dies in the Time Skip between The Homecoming and Ties That Bind, giving birth to Patrick's son Zach. As a consequence Zach winds up regarding their slave Sallie as his mother, and leaves the family, outraged, after Patrick sells her.
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 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_d4bf11d1
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Dramatic Unmask
 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_d4bf11d1
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Dramatic Unmask: Morning Star Rowen sheds her cloak at the end of Ties That Bind, revealing her identity as the person who was behind her son Patrick losing all his land.
 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_d4bf11d1
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 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_e9a3a1ed
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Never Learned to Read
 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_e9a3a1ed
comment
Never Learned to Read: None of the Kentucky hillbillies can read. That makes it even easier for J.T. Wells, the mining company man who arrives in Tall Tales, to rip them off. He gets ignorant Jed Rowen to sign away his very valuable land for a song.
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 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_ed503b22
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Match Cut
 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_ed503b22
comment
Match Cut: An audio match cut, as explicitly described in the stage directions.
 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_ed503b22
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 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_f1a77879
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Plaguemaster
 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_f1a77879
comment
Plaguemaster: Michael Bowen gives smallpox-infested blankets to the local Cherokee tribe, with the intent of wiping them out so that they will pose no threat to his taking ownership of the valley. It works.
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 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_f2b03c88
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Indentured Servitude
 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre) / int_f2b03c88
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Indentured Servitude: Michael Rowen, an Irish immigrant, was an indentured servant. Apparently he released himself from servitude by murdering his master.
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The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre)

The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre)
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Best Served Cold / int_fe332942
 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre)
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Generational Saga / int_fe332942
 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre)
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Lifesaving Misfortune / int_fe332942
 The Kentucky Cycle (Theatre)
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Theatre of the 1990s / int_fe332942