Overview
Written by the author of The Curate Shakespeare As You Like It, Seascape with Sharks and Dancer,
and other plays, this quirky comedy about a family in Indiana enchanted
audiences at New York's WPA Theatre. Pete and John live with their
mother and father, a horticulturist. A pretty young woman named Romy is
engaged to Johnny, who has just inherited a ton of money from a family
friend, Mr. Agajanian. Pete pesters his mother about why Johnny received
the entire inheritance until she admits that Mr. Agajanian was Johnny's
father. Stunned, Johnny retreats to the greenhouse and finds Pete and
Romy making love. Everyone but Johnny is haunted by a traumatic past
experience: the mother by her affair with Agajanian; the father by the
memory of his first true love, a Terre Haute whore; Pete by his failed
marriage to a circus con artist, and Romy by her two failed marriages.
All of the characters but Johnny also know what they want: Louise and
Dan want the contentment of their marriage; Romy wants to bake bread in a
big old house, and she wants Pete, who finally admits that he wants
her, too. Finally, Johnny realizes that what he wants is to go to
Nashville to be a singer of sad love songs.