THE STORY: Joey Casale is thirty-four years old, the youngest of a family of six children; except for a brief period of glory during the war, he has stayed at home all his life, never held a steady job, and lived on the allowance his father has given him. His father is a self-made man, generous with all his children, outwardly very fond of Joey and of Anna, the eldest daughter who lives at home and keeps house for her father and brother. The two older sons are successful professional men, and his father teases Joey about his lack of achievement. But Joey knows what he wants—he’s not made to be a dentist, as his father wanted him to be. Joey is good with his hands, at repairing things. He and his ex-Sergeant have been planning for years to set up a television repair shop. The Sergeant has slowly saved his half of the money to start the shop, and Joey has never doubted that his father would advance him his share out of the family funds. But the father is hostile to the whole idea—Joey would move away from home, the eldest daughter would want to give up the house, and all this would disturb the father’s pleasant routine. Joey asks for the money at a family conference, and the whole surface of the family erupts. The father’s real resentment and anger at Joey comes pouring out. Joey’s mother died in childbirth, and the father has hated Joey ever since. Despite everything the brothers and Anna can do, Joey is refused the money, and can see nothing in his life but a continuation of the aimless, meaningless existence he has followed until now. But with the help of Carmen, his ex-Sergeant, and Anna, Joey at last is able to leave his father. The shop will be a long time in getting started but Joey’s life has finally begun.
“…achieved a bitter tension of impressive proportions…an honest emotional power of tensely touching quality.” —New York Post.
