There is one topic in dramatic literature that really does scare me a bit to share with high school folk. You may think that the topic would be drugs, violence, gender, sexual preference, religion, or morals. These don’t scare me in the least. The one topic that does scare me is the topic of despair. Despair has many faces in dramatic literature. Most commonly it is referred to as the “pipe dream”. The “pipe dream” is a sense that the answer, the good news, the reward is on its way through the pipe headed toward you. What is most painful, of course, is the knowledge that the pipe sprung a leak a long time ago and that nothing is about to happen very slowly. Read more