Gint

by Romulus Linney

THE STORY: GINT unfolds like a strange dream, beginning with Pete Gint, a ragged young man in the Appalachian Mountains in 1917, who spends most of his time lying, drinking and getting into trouble. Gint is determined to become "something great grand and glorious," but he's not sure just what that is. The first act follows Gint's sexual misadventures with a married woman and a woman who turns out to be a razorback hog, but Gint's true love is Sally Vicks. At first Sally disdains Gint, finding him rough and loud, but slowly he wins her over. As they move into a humble mountain cabin, however, the hog woman shows up with Gint's bastard son. Not wanting Sally to be hurt or disgraced by "this nastiness," Gint decides to leave Appalachia and travel far away. Years pass, and the second act finds Gint at 75 and a billionaire. He has called together several other powerful billionaires for he has a dream of founding a new country, based solely on corporations. The billionaires have other plans, however. They have secretly taken over Gint's companies and he is cast out and goes back into the wilderness. Gint then begins a nightmarish journey home, battling lunatics and devils until he arrives back in the arms of Sally Vicks, who accepts him and all his past history.

72 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Caroline]

one day i will direct this play

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

GINT




The plot of gint is quite simple We start with Act 1 we meet gint and find out how much of a storyteller he is and likes to stretch the truth as we meet oldie momma and how she deals with Gints shenanigans. Gint goes to a wedding hes not invited to meets sally but since shes the first girl to turn him down and walks away when his advances don't work so feeling down he runs off with the bride does the fickle frackle. He then gives the bride back and runs away He finds batch of hogs then goes around the forest. He comes back to his oldie momma dying as the town has taken everything from them while gint was gone sally had listen to all the stories of Gint from oldie momma but oldie momma dies upon Gints return and gint swears after they tell one last story together to make something better of himself. Then act 2 happens. After making something of himself he has a plan to take over the world That doesnt work out everything is taken from him, his money,his love life,his youth and his mind. After this he goes back to the mountains sees how everything has changed as the devil himself talks to gint about life. He gets back home where he left sally an indian man talks to gint who turns out to be death and tells gint he never stood for anything gint says give me one day to find a witness to prove you wrong and the indian man says alright you have to sunset gint agrees. Gint talks to few people but ends up talking to sally and using her as a witness but all in all Gint dies and goes into Deaths sack.The reason i enjoy gint personally so much is that to be honest in its roots of all things its a simple coming of age story. When Romulus linney wrote the play based off of Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt it was meant to bring the great fable to a more modern feel or at least a shorter and easier way to understand the long story into a short two act play in a way Gint is a summary of the longer version which in all respects i think is better than the original. With its easier to understand language (even though it retaining the mountain like accent) as well as its more toned down vulgarity. Others will enjoy this play simply when done right all you need is a few boxes a quilt, an onion, and a few very physical actors to pull of all the vastly different characters in the story. i recommend this to teens those who think plays are boring and slow. This fast pace funny a bit raunchy here and there but teaches good lessons of never just walk around your problems stand up for something you believe in or just stand for something in general and you won't be put into the poor old indians poke.