South of No North (short Story Collection) - The Play

The Play

South of No North (Stories of the Buried Life) is the title of a play adapted from nine of Bukowski's short stories by Leo Farley and Jonathan Powers, who also co-directed the play for New York, New York 29th Street Rep theatrical company. The individual stories are held together by the framing device of the character of Charles Bukowski (played by actor Stephen Payne) in the act of writing. Bukowski (Payne ) comments on the stories, serves as narrator, and occasionally (as in the adaptation of Love for $17.50, which The New York Times review of September 25, 2000 called the "most notable" of the stories), enters the action.

The unnamed Times reviewer wrote that:

When he and his stories intersect, the results can be revealing, funny and surprisingly theatrical.... This Bukowski is no simple hero of the disenfranchised, and South of No North is most involving when it unfurls this rare psyche through such complex moments, when Bukowski keys into his pathetic characters with frightened identification and amused sympathy. Mr. Payne finds humor and pathos in the role.... Even his narration, with its languorous hold on words even as his sentences round to a close, suggests the writer's intoxication with the life of his mind. It is a rich performance.

Payne also played Bukowski's literary alter-ego, Henry Chinaski, a character of some of the story adaptations, which were more like vignettes. The Times reviewer notes that, "The appeal of these vignettes is spotty, and neither they nor the episodic structure offers much narrative and emotional drive".