Act 1, Part 1 Summary

A shabby boarding house is the setting for this story of confrontations between past and present and between delusion and reality. Many levels of violence are portrayed, emotional and physical, suppressed and overt. As is the case with many works by this author, the play's over-arching theme relates to the idea that nothing, and no one, is what or who they seem.

Petey comes in, having been to get his morning paper. He sits and reads as Meg fusses over him - bringing his breakfast and asking if there's anything good in the news. When Petey reads the birth announcement for a baby girl, she says that she would have preferred a boy. All the while, she asks whether things are "nice" - the corn flakes, the news in the paper and the weather. She asks whether Petey has seen Stanley...