The Persistence of Memory and Other Plays

Always, the past endures...


Twenty years ago, Mark David Major (author of Mars Rising) wrote three plays in a burst of creative activity over a three-year period. The first of these plays, The Persistence of Memory, premiered during a short, successful run at a historic St. Louis area theatre in May 1992. Twenty years later, the author revisited and updated these plays so they could be discovered by a new generation of readers and patrons of the theatre in The Persistence of Memory and Other Plays. This edition also includes prefaces written by the lead actors of the original cast for The Persistence of Memory and a new Introduction by the playwright reflecting on the creative genesis and literary influences of the plays, challenges and opportunities during the 1992 production, and the rationale for specific revisions and updates to the plays some twenty years later. 


The plays of Mark David Major perfectly embody the didactic nature of Generation X at its best and worst on the themes of romantic love and emotional honesty. It is characterized by a purity of perspective tinted with a cynicism wise beyond its years and a raw emotionalism carefully veiled under a mask of social indifference. These plays give voice to an entire generation, the children of a revolution.