Short Eyes at The Latino Theater Company

Authors

• Miguel Pinero

"Short Eyes" is a 1974 drama written by playwright Miguel Piñero. The play premiered off-Broadway at the Joseph Papp Public Theater on 28 February 1974, and transferred after 54 performances to the Vivian Beaumont Theatre on Broadway on 23 May 1974. Short Eyes, prison slang for a pedophile, was written for a prisoners' writing workshop during Pinero's incarceration for armed robbery.

The play is set in an unnamed House of Detention in New York City, the prisoners of which are predominately black or Hispanic. One day, a new prisoner is brought in: Clark Davis, a young, middle-class white man accused of raping a young girl. His fellow prisoners immediately turn on him - child molesters are considered the lowest form of prison life - except for Juan, one of the institution's older prisoners, who treats him with dignity. While Davis insists he doesn't remember raping the girl, he admits that he has molested several other children.