THE STORY: Torn between his mother’s urgings to finish school and get his diploma and his own impatience to take a job while training to become a prize fighter, Tommy has all but decided to become a dropout. But his delimma is compounded by the example of his own family: a chronically unemployed father now in a mental institution, and a pregnant sister whose husband cannot find a job because of his lack of schooling. By the end of the first act the stage is set for what could be a disturbing conclusion—and the audience is invited to offer its own ideas as to what must happen next.
Act Two brings no easy answers, but a note of “cautious optimism” emerges from the compassionate working out of the possible alternatives, and with this comes a powerful and moving lesson in the need to persevere and look to the future despite all present odds.
