THE STORY: Set in the dramatically colorful, economically bleak thirties, the play begins with the early morning arrival of a handful of women at their drab jobs. Filomena, brassy, good-natured, working to pay for her sister’s education; Frances, shy and scared, forfeiting her own dreams to indulge a selfish mother; Mae, self-centered, imagining herself a professional model; Joan, holding down two jobs to support her piano studies; and Inez, hoping to dance to fame through the Harvest Moon Ball contest. Into this group comes young Marsha, sensitive, educated, resented for being a cut above the others. Tension and friction mount under pressure of their forced cooperation to maintain the flow of work, until a sudden accident by a careless stock-boy causes the factory owner to suffer a severe heart attack. Abruptly the individual dreams are halted. Awed by the awareness of a potential death, they reach out for one another and create a brief moment of gentleness and understanding. But, relentless as reality, the work resumes and the assembly line continues as it must coldly, impersonally, inexorably.
Included in the collection
A is for All.
Funny, lively and spirited, yet deeply moving, the play is concerned with a group of factory workers and the exciting interplay of their personalities under the tensions created by their hypnotic daily routine.
