All three plays in the series deal with
Caribbean immigrant families living in New York City at various periods during the 20th century. While each family is different, each play features a patriarch that has become incapacitated in one way or another. The plays in the trilogy are as follows:
Eden Set in the
San Juan Hill section of New York City in the late 1920s,
Eden tells a story somewhat reminiscent of
Romeo and Juliet about a young Caribbean woman who falls in love with a
black man from the rural American South. Her strict father does not approve of the relationship, because he feels that American blacks, especially those from the rural South, are vastly inferior to Caribbean blacks. The play was produced by NEC in 1976, then transferred to
Theatre de Lys to continue its run for a total of 181 performances. The production garnered Carter recognition from the
Outer Critics Circle as the season's most promising new playwright.
Nevis Mountain Dew Nevis Mountain Dew, the second play in the series, deals with the effects of the patriarch being crippled by paralysis in the
Queens section of New York City in the 1950s. Like
Whose Life Is It Anyway?, it deals with
euthanasia. Both were among the ten productions selected by the
Burns Mantle Yearbook as "The Best Plays of 1978–1979."
Dame Lorraine In 1981, Carter left NEC to become the first playwright-in-residence at the
Victory Gardens Theater in
Chicago. His first play produced there was
Dame Lorraine, the final play of his Caribbean trilogy. Set in modern times, the play tells the story of an elderly couple living in
Harlem that anxiously await the return of their last surviving son who has just been released from prison. ==Later works==