Three Exposures

House of blue leaves: Artie Shaugnessy is a songwriter with visions of glory. Toiling by day as a zoo-keeper, he suffers in seedy lounges by night, plying his wares at piano bars in Queens, New York where he lives with his wife, Bananas. Who is. Much to the chagrin of Artie's downstairs mistress, Bunny Flingus who'll sleep with him anytime but refuses to cook until they are married. On the day the Pope is making his first visit to the city, Artie's son Ronny goes AWOL from Fort Dix stowing a home made-bomb intended to blow up the Pope in Yankee Stadium. Also arriving are Artie's old school chum, now a successful Hollywood producer, Billy Einhorn with starlet girlfriend in tow, who holds the key to Artie's dreams of getting out of Queens and away from the life he so despises. But like many dreams, this promise of glory evaporates amid the chaos of ordinary lives. Landscape of the body: Moving back and forth in time, the action of the play is a mosaic of short scenes, monologues and original songs, all blending together into a revealing and affecting study of the American Dream gone awry. The play moves on many levels. In one sense it is a murder mystery: a boy is found dead, and his mother is suspected of his killing. But, as the investigation of the crime proceeds, other themes emerge and combine with it. Bosoms and neglect: Scooper, a successful but emotionally insecure man edging reluctantly into his forties, discovers that his aged, blind mother, Henny, has been hiding the fact that she is suffering from cancer. With some difficulty he persuades her to undergo surgery, and then turns his attention to Deirdre, a beautiful but extremely neurotic girl whom he picks up in the waiting room of their shared psychiatrist. Their conversation, which is alternately funny, caustic, outlandish and filled with sharp observations of jet-set foibles, centers on their nervous anxiety about the impending vacation of their "shrink," a man without whose services neither can function. Their fears lead to an altercation in which Scooper injures Deirdre's foot and she stabs him in the spleen, with the result that both end up in the hospital with Scooper's mother{u2014}where, in a revealing monologue by the now recovering Henny, the play's sad-funny conclusions about life in our perilous times are made eloquently clear.