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Synopsis
In this wonderful comic drama, daughter Margaret, a famous painter, arrives to help her
flaky, hat-sporting mother and absentminded father move out of the family homestead. As
the boxes are packed, old memories are re-awakened and this unlikely trio comes to grips
with their past, present, and future. What emerges is a family portrait {literally and
figuratively} that is zany, heartwarming, heartbreaking and true.
From Samuel French, Inc. :
Gardner and Fanny Church are preparing to move out of their Beacon Hill house
to their summer cottage on Cape Cod. Gardner, once a famous poet, now is retired.
He slips in and out of senility as his wife Fanny valiantly tries to keep them both afloat.
They have asked their daughter, Mags, to come home and help them move.
Mags agrees, for she hopes as well to finally paint their portrait. She is now on the verge
of artistic celebrity herself and hopes, by painting her parents, to come to
terms with them—and they with her. Mags triumphs in the end as Fanny and
Gardner actually step through the frame and become a work of art—ineffable and
timeless. ‘‘Beautifully written. . . . A theatrical family portrait that has the shimmer
and depth of Renoir portraits.’’—N.Y. Times. ‘‘A radiant, loving and zestfully
humorous play . . . distinctly Chekhovian. Howe captures the same edgy surface of
false hilarity, the same unutterable sadness beneath it, and the indomitable valor
beneath both.’’—Time.
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