Act 1 Summary

The play opens in a dark room of wood, which formerly served as a vegetable store. The room is run down, messy, and depressing with the windows covered in newspaper. There is a staircase and two rooms are upstairs, as well as a bedroom downstairs.

As the lights go down, music begins to play, and Tillie's voice begins to speak through the darkness. She gives a monologue on the atom and her relation to it, as the lights begin to come up on the stage. Her speech ends with the words, "And he called this bit of me an atom. And when he wrote the word, I fell I love with it. Atom. Atom. What a beautiful word."

As Tillie's monologue ends, a phone rings. From off stage, Beatrice calls for Tillie to answer the phone. Frustrated and angry, she enters the stage...