Overview

Pat is the caretaker of both her mother, stricken with Alzheimer's disease, and her grandmother, lonely and in need of help. The play involves a series of day trips which Pat takes with her mother, Irene, to help her grandmother, Rose. These trips evoke memories of the earlier day trips made when Pat was a little girl and Irene was still capable. Through a series of scenes which blend memories, dreams and realism, DAYTRIPS piercingly illuminates the troubling and complicated effects of oldage and disease on already troubled and complicated relationships. The real journey of the play is Pat's struggle with duty and obligation as she confronts illness, madness and the ghosts of the past—and the present.