Short Eyes (play)

Short Eyes
Written by	Miguel Piñero
Date premiered	28 February 1974
Place premiered	Joseph Papp Public Theater New York City
Original language	English
Subject	young convicts in a prison fight, insult and entertain one another in an attempt to preserve their sanity and create a semblance of community
Genre	Drama
Setting	a dayroom in a detention centre

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 Theater on Broadway on 23 May 1974. Short Eyes, prison slang for a child molester, 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 predominantly 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.

It is eventually revealed that the police's case against Davis is weak, and he will likely be released. This puts Juan in a difficult position: on one hand, he feels a grudging pity for Davis, and "snitching" on another prisoner, even one as despised as Davis, could get him killed; on the other, there is no doubt in his mind that Davis will "scar up some more little girls' minds" if released. Before he can decide what to do, however, Davis is attacked and killed by the other prisoners.

The play also revolves around other features of prison life, such as the day-to-day attempts to accumulate privileges from the guards and "rap sessions" in which prisoners joke, flirt, and threaten each other.

In 1974, the play was presented at Riverside Church in Manhattan. Theater impresario Joseph Papp saw the play and was so impressed that he moved the production to Broadway. The play was nominated for six Tony Awards. It won the New York Critics Circle Award and an Obie Award for the "best play of the year". The play was also a success in Europe, and catapulted Piñero to literary fame. Short Eyes was published in book form by the editorial house Hill & Yang.

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