THE STORIES: In the first play,
Faith, by Israel Horovitz, a group of 1960s radical writers hold a reunion, twenty years later, in front of the statue of the Polish King Jagiello in New York's Central Park. Reared in an age of sex, booze, drugs and explicit language, the group finds that time, and the demands of making a living, have both drained their passions and left their dreams half-realized. But the daughter of one of them, speaking for her own generation, confronts them with the legacy of cynicism and hopelessness which they have passed on, whether or not they realize it.
The second play,
Hope, by Terrence McNally, takes place in the same setting, but this time the central figures are a young brother and sister who have come to the park before dawn to honor the memory of a close friend who has committed suicide after becoming ill with AIDS. They meet a nun in civilian clothes (who is really not a nun at all, but who nevertheless admonishes the boy for his salty language); a man listening to Mahler on his headphones; and a chatty lady who has come to feed the pigeons. Although they meet by chance, and have little in common, somehow they manage to infuse each other with a sense of hope as the sun, at last, comes up over the quiet city.
In the third play,
Charity, by Leonard Melfi, the action again takes place at the same site in Central Park, but this time after nightfall. A woman swigs brandy and talks to the statue and then, suddenly, draws a gun and accosts another woman, an artist who has come to capture the statue on canvas. But the gun isn't loaded. In fact, as she demonstrates by persuading the artist to "hold up" another pair of evening strollers, the gun is really a way to spread love and good cheer—which, with infectious whimsy, the play most certainly does.
