Brutal Imagination: The Play - (Illuminations) by Cornelius Eady (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

"Eady fuses headlines and history with language that is a field holler, a blues shout, a hip hop rap that combusts inside the soul and keep on burning." --Bebe Moore Campbell

This spare and haunting play takes its inspiration from the case of Susan Smith, a white woman who murdered her two young children by strapping them into the back seat of her car and pushing it into a lake. In statements to the police, Smith claimed she had been carjacked by a young Black man. In Brutal Imagination, adapted from his National Book Award-finalist poetry cycle, Cornelius Eady conjures this imaginary Black man as Mr. Zero, who appears in order to "to get things done" when white people need a scapegoat for the consequences of their own actions. As Smith spins her story into more and more elaborate designs, Mr. Zero begins to rebel against his appointed task, leading Smith (and us) slowly closer to the dark secret at the center of the play.

Brutal Imagination implicates not just the small town of Union, South Carolina, but an entire American racial imaginary in which a white woman's story, no matter how ludicrous, is always believed if it implicates a Black man.

Review Quotes

"Resuscitating this frightening invention of racism and desperation and letting him speak for himself is the bold and inspired idea behind Brutal Imagination...It's the sort of concept that grabs you instantly and ferociously."

--New York Times

"In transforming Brutal Imagination from poetry to theater, Eady has grown into a powerful playwright."

--BOMB Magazine

"Mixing facts, speculation and poetic extrapolation, Eady's script finds Susan and Mr. Zero entwined in a dreamlike world, recounting together the events leading up to and following the murder of her children and the racial stereotypes that played into her claim and their acceptance."

--New City Stage

"Eady's joy in language engenders our trust in the music that his art has made of love and pain."

--Publishers Weekly

"Over the course of the nine days between the shocking event and Susan Smith's confession of the crime, these two characters are brought to life in a powerful, theatrical encounter."

--TheaterMania

"Brutal Imagination is harrowing and powerful...a vivid theatrical experience."

--Associated Press

About the Author

Cornelius Eady is a poet, playwright, musician, and author of numerous works, including Hardheaded Weather, Brutal Imagination (Finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry), and Victims of the Latest Dance Craze (Winner of the Academy of American Poets' Lamont Poetry Prize). The title poem of his chapbook, Proof, was written for and recited at the 2026 Inauguration of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. His many accolades include the Academy of American Poets' Wallace Stevens Award, the Furious Flower Lifetime Achievement Award, the Prairie Schooner Strousse Award, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation. In addition to Brutal Imagination: The Play, his other theatre pieces include You Don't Miss Your Water, Fangs, and Running Man, all cowritten with jazz musician Diedre Murray. In 1999, Running Man was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama and awarded two Obie Awards. In 2024, it was recorded by the Cast Album Project at Lincoln Center as their inaugural project.

Joe Morton is an Emmy(R) Award winner and recipient of multiple NAACP Image Awards for his role as Rowan/Eli Pope in Shonda Rhimes's critically acclaimed series Scandal. Presently, Joe is guesting on the CBS series Cupertino, premiering in the fall of 2026. Previously, he appeared as General Davidson on FOX's Going Dutch, on CBS's feel-good, Sunday-night series God Friended Me, and on Netflix's The Politician. Morton expanded his TV presence as executive co-producer and co-host on Inside the Black Box, an interactive interview show, which explored the experiences of black artists within the entertainment world. In film, Morton is widely known as the mute alien in the title role of John Sayle's The Brother from Another Planet, and as the ill-fated scientist, Miles Dyson, in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Other notable film credits include Speed, Of Mice and Men, Ali, Blues Brothers 2000, HBO's star-studded special Between the World and Me, and as Cyborg's dad, Dr. Silas Stone, in Zack Snyder's Batman v. Superman and Justice League. For his Off-Broadway portrayal of comedian/civil-rights activist, Dick Gregory, in Turn Me Loose, Morton received the Lucille Lortel Award, the Off-Broadway Alliance Award, and the AUDELCO for Outstanding Lead Actor in a play.