Scene 1

Dutchman takes place "in the flying underbelly of the city:" in a subway train. Throughout the play, the audience is made aware of the setting through the roar of the train and the flashing lights as it speeds and slows and occasionally stops for passengers. Twenty-year-old Clay, a black man, is riding the train. At first only his seat is visible. Before the action of scene gets underway, he exchanges a fleeting smile with an unknown face on the platform and then goes back to reading his magazine.

Lula, a thirty-year-old white woman with long red hair wearing a small, revealing dress, boards the subway, daintily eating an apple. After momentarily awaiting his acknowledgment of her presence, she takes the seat next to Clay. Her manner and mode of conversing with Clay swings from boldly flirtatious to oddly morose and aloof as they share more apples than...