Located in Central America, in a remote region between the jungle and the sea, "Crackerjack's Saloon" is run by Darla and Sophia, the daughter and wife of the incarcerated owner of the bar.

The action begins when an American shows up carrying a distressed treasure map leading to the Black Madonna---a statue lost in a shipwreck carrying Spanish enslavers and their enslaved African captives. As legend has it, the indigenous Bribri slayed the Spaniards but freed the enslaved Africans, incorporating them into their tribe. In a twisted nod to "The Maltese Falcon," the Black Madonna is solid gold underneath her black lacquered veneer.

Calling upon two Afro-Caribbean fishermen and a local Bribri man, the American finds the statue, revealing the legends to be true: the Black Madonna is, in fact, solid gold and encrusted with diamonds.

Enabled by greed and latent racism, the discovery of the statue not only exposes gold, but the myth of the American Dream and the reality of imperialism down through the ages. The Black Madonna is a tale of murder and mayhem in a darkly comic hurly-burly of clashing cultures and values. Filled with fusillades of revelation, confrontation, and reversal, the play is a moral detective story, a tragedy of errors, and a familial fairytale, all seamlessly woven into a tapestry of transformation and insight.