<DIV><DIV><i>Beat Generation</i> is a play about tension, about friendship, and about karma — what it is and how you get it. It begins one fine morning with a few friends, honest laborers some of them, some close to being down-and-out, passing around a bottle of wine. It ends with a kind of satori-like reaffirmation of the power of friendship, of doing good through not doing, and the intrinsic worth of the throw-away little exchanges that make up our lives.<BR><BR>Written in 1957, the same year that <i>On the Road</i> was first published, and set in 1953, <i>Beat Generation</i> portrays an authentic and alternate 1950s America. Kerouac's characters are working-class men and women — a step away from vagrants, but not a big step. Their dialogue positively sings, suggesting jazz riffs in their rhythm and content, and Kerouac, like a master composer, arranges it to magical effect. Here is the heart and soul of the beat mentality, the zeitgeist that blossomed over the decades and eventually culminated in the counter-culture of 1960s America. It's a spirit that still lives.<BR></DIV>