The story takes place in a totalitarian state in which a principal has been ordered to show up at the commune slaughterhouse by the authorities because he asked a shopkeeper why he had placed a hamster in a treadmill in his shop window. He asks a young couple to show him the direction. These are two revolutionaries waiting for the dictator’s parade to pass so they can kill the president. The young man provides the older with a gun and encourages him to shoot the dictator. However, he never fires the gun and when the parade has passed him he asks the audience for the direction to the slaughterhouse where he is to receive his sentence.
ONE ACTS BY TENN is a series of one act plays by Tennessee Williams, written in the thirties and the forties. They can be performed separately or with others. Regarding USA productions the performance has been given the title 5 BY TENN or 8 BY TENN.
