THE STORIES: The first play,
6:15 on the 104, deals with a chance encounter on a New York City bus, where four women, all strangers, suddenly find themselves confiding in each other. Happily they all benefit from the experience—particularly the timid Blair, who is convinced that no one ever notices her until a fellow passenger playfully dabs a dot of red lipstick on the end of her nose! (4 women.)
The second play,
If You Were My Wife I’d Shoot Myself, is set in a bar in Rome. A young American actress, Marinella, solicits the help of the bartender, Antonio, in composing a letter to her idol, the famous Italian stage and film director, Franco Zefferelli, who, she hopes, will give her a role in his next project. Cynical and world-weary, Antonio is, at first, impatient with Marinella's histrionics and apparent flightiness, but gradually, as confidences are exchanged, a bridge of understanding—and compassion—is created between these two very different people. (1 man, 1 woman.)
In the third play,
Under Control, a brother and sister join their stepmother in Florida for their father's burial. David is a hard-driving television producer who must be on top of every situation; Connie, a successful journalist, has a distorted sense of the power and validity of reason; while Frances, their stepmother, is an easygoing sort who is severely unruffled by things which seem to trouble her stepchildren. The crux of their present unease is how to dispose of the ashes of the deceased—a problem that is ultimately resolved in a rather surprising but mutually satisfactory manner. (1 man, 2 women.)
