THE STORY: In a motel room near Kennedy Airport, Wanda and Edwin are preparing to embark for Africa. He is a college professor disposed to having affairs with his students (after which he has them expelled); she is a perennially stoned devotée of Vogue magazine who wants to start a new life. Both parents despise their grown daughter, Constance, who arrives at the motel in the clown makeup she wore to a church bazaar earlier in the day, and is determined to join in their escape or stop them from departing. As they hilariously bicker, several decades of grievances are dredged up—and a murder takes place. In the end, there are outrageous, but telling comments about a host of other subjects, including families, organized religion, sex, marriage, compulsive shopping and even the “desiccation of European cities,” all delivered in a bracing, madcap style which sweeps through the theatre with its fresh, invigorating originality.
Winner of the 1983 Obie Award as Most Promising Playwright of the season.
This highly irreverent and brilliantly imaginative black comedy introduced a young writer of exceptional talent and originality to a wide audience. Zany, bizarre, and wildly funny, the play offers a biting commentary on the All-American family and the torments which lie beneath its ostensibly calm surface.
“…Snakes through the theatre like an air-raid-siren its caustic, surreal humor and bizarre vision are original and special.” —The New York Times.
