Adopted from the 1721 Japanese Bunraku puppet play by Chikamatsu, Woman Killer is the story of two ordinary upper-class American families and a terrible tragedy that destroys their lives. A young man strays so far from the life that he was meant to live that in a moment of despair, he kills a neighbor for money. This desperate act erupts at the end of a long personal descent riddled with debt, rage, and jealousy. This intense play explores the nature of human violence from both perspectives of the trauma, the aggressor’s and the victim’s. It transcends time, place, and culture to portray a sobering story of a murder, too familiar in the society in which we live today.