THE STORY: Miriam Lipsky, unmarried and living with her thirteen-year-old daughter, Amanda, works as a waitress to pay the bills, but it is her painting that really matters to her. Good subjects are scarce in the drab Pennsylvania coal town where they live, so Miriam dons a miner’s lamp and paints at night, when moonlight softens and transforms the stark landscape. Miriam is also desirous of male companionship, a need which the precocious Amanda (she has an IQ of 160) has discouraged by driving away suitor after suitor with her barbed comments. Amanda, compensating for the lack of a father, has also created an imaginary friend, Randolph, who appears (only to her) in a resplendent white suit and provides mischievous advice and guidance. Matters come to a head when Miriam brings home Warren Zimmerman, a rather unprepossessing, somewhat paunchy mailman who, at first, appears to be a perfect target for Amanda’s (and Randolph’s) caustic remarks and demeaning intelligence tests. Until, that is, he quietly but firmly beats Amanda at her own game. In fact it is the surprisingly resourceful Warren who is able, at last, to wean Amanda away from her dependence on Randolph and into reality—and who, in time, may also be the one able to fill the aching needs of both Amanda and her lonely mother.
A touching, gently humorous study of a precocious teenager’s “coming of age,” in which fantasy and reality are deftly juxtaposed to heighten the affecting message of the play.
“It is a tender, fragile account of a teenage girl’s break with childhood…” —Philadelphia Inquirer.
“The fourth opus by localite Bruce Graham introduced under the auspices of the Philadelphia Festival Theater for New Plays reaffirms his status as that enterprising group’s most impressive discovery.” —Variety.
