THE STORY: This play is a vivid and affecting study of the sometimes disturbing, sometimes funny crises that lie between youth and adulthood. The scene is a ramshackle beach house on the California coast, where Irene, a widow and poet and college teacher, is summering with her children and the friends who make their place a second home. Owen, her older son, and Joan, her daughter, are college students—old enough to feel the need to strike out on their own and yet still young enough to be vulnerable to the hurts that can result. Owen has conceived a hopeless passion for the pregnant wife of Calvin, a graduate student; while Joan is drawn to Clint, her mother’s gentleman friend. As the play moves ahead gently in the summer twilight passions erupt, and sadness, joy and the pains of growing up are made real—as are the strength and wisdom of a loving mother who has learned the need for patience, forbearance and an understanding heart.
This play is a vivid and affecting study of the sometimes disturbing, sometimes funny crises which lie between youth and adulthood.
Included in the collection
The Sand Castle and Three Other Plays.
