Synopsis

New York City’s meatpacking district, where reality warps in the aftermath of a hate crime

Phyllis Nagy’s surreal play Weldon Rising explores the psychological fallout of a homophobic murder through a fever dream of guilt, memory, and sweltering heat. The story centers on Natty Weldon, a gay man who fled the scene when his partner Jimmy was stabbed to death by a violent Boy. As temperatures in the city rise to impossible levels, Natty grapples with his cowardice alongside a cast of eccentric characters: Marcel, a sharp-tongued drag queen; and Tilly and Jaye, a lesbian couple who witnessed the crime from their apartment window.

Nagy’s nonlinear narrative weaves between past and present, memory and hallucination, as the characters confront their roles in Jimmy’s death and their own identities. The play’s oppressive heat becomes a metaphor for the characters’ internal turmoil and the pressure of societal judgment. Through fragmented conversations, surreal transformations, and a climactic reconciliation with the past, Weldon Rising offers a haunting meditation on collective guilt, the nature of memory, and the struggle for queer survival in a hostile world. As reality disintegrates around them, the characters must face their deepest fears and ultimately choose whether to succumb to despair or embrace a kind of transcendence.