ORDEAL AT THE SUPERDOME

ORDEAL AT THE SUPERDOME is an extraordinary play written by French playwright Alain Saint-Saëns, who lived twenty years in New Orleans. Many readers will identify themselves with Barbara Carter’s family and her ordeal through Katrina and its immediate aftermath. Deaths because of heat exhaustion and stress; rapes of women in the bathrooms; have been attested and reported by survivors after the NFL Superdome evacuation. Barbara Carter, modern ‘Mother Courage,’ exemplifies the fortitude, the greatness, and the weakness of lower-class American people, in the still racially divided environment of pre-Katrina New Orleans. She fights with her teeth for her children’s life and rights in a very chaotic environment, helped only by her faith in God and a strong belief that, regardless of their gender and the color of their skin, her children can become, in 21st century America, whatever they dream to become with hard work and fear of God: a Supreme Court Justice or a NFL Wide Receiver. 'Certainly it will be a long time before we have another memorable figure like Barbara Carter, ‘a spirited and noble human being, a tormented soul full of ardent faith and forgettable sins.'' Gerald Monsman.