Act 2 Summary

The second act opens with no passage of time, and Anna and Dave are still seated on the floor. The pair naturally falls into playing a game in which they explore their true feelings by talking as if they are children again. Anna speaks in her native Australian accent, as if she were speaking to her mother, and she declares that she will never have a life like her mother's, trapped as a housewife with unending work and no joy.

Dave's childhood regression takes the form of a scenario on the streets of Chicago. He and his friends pretend to be famous gangsters from the 1930s. Dave was the leader of the neighborhood gangs, and his socialist and anarchist tendencies swayed the vision for the entire group. This group association prepared Dave and his friends to negotiate their world. Dave laments the fact...