The Bridge Party

The setting of THE BRIDGE PARTY is the meeting of an African American women's bridge club in the Tennessee of the 1940's. A group of women have gathered for their weekly bridge party hosted by the daughters of Emma Edwards, Theodora, Leona and Marietta. The women must deal both with personal dilemmas and the racism of the era. Leona is pregnant and separated from her husband. When the play opens, the women await the return of Cordie Cheek, a young black man acquitted of the charge of molesting a white woman. At the beginning of the second act, Marietta reports that Cordie Cheek has been tortured and lynched on a bridge outside town. The women are confronted by newly-deputized white officers going house-to-house through the black area looking for guns to confiscate. The play ends with Marietta's speculations about the possibility of race war and the ultimate achievement of justice.