"The Octoroon; or, Life in Louisiana. A Play in Five acts" by Dion Boucicault is a play that opened in 1859. Set on a failing Louisiana plantation, it tells the story of George Peyton, who falls in love with Zoe, an enslaved woman of mixed race. Their romance faces insurmountable legal and social barriers in the antebellum South. When the villain McClosky commits murder to seize the property and claim Zoe for himself, tragedy unfolds. This anti-slavery melodrama sparked fierce debates about abolition and theatrical politics. (This is an automatically generated summary.)