Written by Nobel Prize-winner William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury tells the story of the decline of the Compson family of fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi. A once noble clan descended from a Civil War hero, the family falls victim to many of the shortcomings Faulkner believed were the problems of the reconstructed South—racism, greed, selfishnesss—thereby showing how the ideals and life of the old South could not easily be maintained or preserved in the post-Civil War era.
The staged version of The Sound and the Fury is based on Part One of Faulkner's novel, April Seventh, 1928. It is produced by Elevator Repair Company, which has staged the works of a number of classic novelists including F. Scott Fitzgerald and Jack Kerouac.