A heartwarming play by John Patrick, first produced in 1950.
Mrs. Ethel P. Savage has just inherited $10 million from her late husband. After her husband's death, she realizes her crazy, youthful dreams and plans to use the money to help others do the same. Her stepkids—Titus, Lily Belle, and Samuel—commit her to The Cloisters, a sanatorium in Massachusetts, so that they can get their hands on the money. Somehow or another, Mrs. Savage manages to send them on one wild-goose chase after another from her seclusion.
Along the way, she gets to know the Cloisters's residents:
Hannibal: A former statistician who lost his sense of reasoning after being replaced by an electronic calculator and not finding work again. He believes he is an excellent violinist.
Florence: A dignified woman who carries around a baby doll, believing it to be her son, who died when he was an infant.
Fairy May: A plain young woman, with the mind of a six-year-old, who is a Compulsive Liar. She believes she is stunningly beautiful and is determined to have someone say, "I love you" to her at least once a day.
Jeff: A handsome guy whose plane was shot down in World War II and thinks the incident left him with a disfiguring scar.
Mrs. Paddy: An artist who paints only seascapes, each consisting of one undulating line. This strikes Hannibal as "odd, because she's never seen the ocean." Her husband once told her to shut up, and she never spoke again, except to rant: "I hate lightning, skunk cabbage, custard, mustard, spiders, blisters...."
Dr. Emmett: The voice of reason.
Miss Willie: A nurse who has her own reasons for working at the understaffed Cloisters.
Even though the setting and premise look serious on paper, this play, done right, is both comedy and gentle satire. The three Savage children are contrasted against the kind inmates at the Cloisters; add Mrs. Savage to the mix, and audiences are often left wondering who the sane ones really are.
This play contains examples of:
- 0% Approval Rating: Senator Titus P. Savage is the most hated man in the Senate. The only reason he keeps getting re-elected is that no one wants him back in the state. Similarly, Judge Samuel Savage constantly has his decisions reversed on appeal.
- Affectionate Nickname: Miss Willie calls Jeff "Bingo," much to his consternation, since it's a pet name his wife uses... who happens to be Miss Willie herself.
- The Alleged Expert: Samuel Savage is a very ineffective judge.
- Baby-Doll Baby: Florence carries a baby doll she thinks is her son, John Thomas, who died when he was an infant. She believes he is five years old and that he has the measles.
- But Now I Must Go: Inverted. Mrs. Savage is given permission to leave the sanatorium, but doesn't want to, because she's found a peace in The Cloisters that she's never experienced elsewhere. Dr. Emmett has to persuade her that it's the outside world that needs her.Dr. Emmett: [talking about the residents] They have found refuge in an eggshell world where you don't belong. For you see yourself clearly, I'm sure.
- Chekhov's Gun: Mrs. Savage has hidden the bonds in the teddy bear she carries with her.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Seeing as how six characters live in the nuthouse...
- Cool Old Lady: Mrs. Savage, who wants to use her inheritance to help others realize their dreams.
- The Cuckoolander Was Right: At one point, Fairy May runs in, claiming there's a fire upstairs. Since she's a Compulsive Liar, no one believes her. A few minutes later, Dr. Emmett smells smoke, and Miss Willie brings in a burnt bundle of papers: allegedly the bonds. After the Savage children leave, believing the money to be gone, Miss Willie returns the bonds to Mrs. Savage, explaining that she had only pretended to burn them.
- Dartboard of Hate: At Fairy May's suggestion, Mrs. Savage does this to Lily Belle's newspaper photo. Hilarity Ensues.
- Death by Materialism: Narrowly avoided by Samuel Savage, who searches for Mrs. Savage's bonds inside an old brick chimney in Boston. When he starts pulling out bricks, the chimney promptly collapses on him, breaking his arm.Mrs. Savage: Well, for some people—it takes a ton of bricks, you know.
- Delinquent Hair: Before the play begins, Mrs. Savage has invoked this by dying her hair blue as part of her becoming a Senior Delinquent (in her stepchildren's eyes).
- Delusions of Beauty: Downplayed. Fairy May believes she's beautiful when she's actually fairly homely. When Mrs. Savage sees the inhabitants as they view themselves at the end, Fairy May is a lovely, well-dressed girl, standing and waving to the people admiring her.
- Elderly Blue-Haired Lady: Mrs. Savage again. After dying her hair red and then going with a skunk stripe, she finally decided just to tint her hair blue, since it goes with everything.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Titus has one, particularly when dealing with his stepmother.
- Happily Married:
- Mrs. Savage never regretted all of the things she didn't get to do because she married young... until after her husband died.
- Unbeknownst to Jeff, he and Miss Willie are married. Jeff is well aware that he is married, but he does not recognize her, thinking that her singling him out for attention would make his wife livid. Miss Willie meanwhile works at the Cloisters so she can be by Jeff every step of the way through his recovery, and thinks nothing of throwing herself in harm's way to protect him.
- Happy Place: As she leaves, Mrs. Savage briefly sees the Cloisters residents as they see themselves—Mrs. Paddy's easel holds a beautiful seascape, Hannibal is playing skillfully on the violin, Fairy May is well-dressed and lovely, and Florence has a real, living son. The one exception is Jeff, whose self-imagined scar is nowhere to be seen; instead, he is playing the piano with his old skill and self-confidence, just as he wishes he could.
- Hidden Depths: Mrs. Savage discovers that Jeff is a gifted concert pianist, who hasn't played since the war because of his "injury."
- I Am Spartacus: Jeff and Florence both claim to be the ones to have taken the bonds, while Hannibal also chimes in that he knows who it wasn't.
- I Just Want to Be Loved: A non-romantic example. Fairy May is determined to have someone say, "I love you" to her at least once a day.
- Jerkass: The Savage stepchildren, in a set of three.
- Kill the Lights: Mrs. Paddy, who has given up electricity for Lent, does this more than once, causing mayhem.
- Man Bites Man: When Lily Belle first met Mrs. Savage, she bit her new stepmother's finger. She's been just as vicious ever since.
- May–December Romance: Presumably. Mrs. Savage was 16 when she met her husband and he already had three children.
- Monkey Morality Pose: At one point, Hannibal, Jeff, and Fairy May assume this pose on a couch for a while.
- Nobility Marries Money: Lily Belle once married a Slovak prince. She's remarried five times since then.
- No Honor Among Thieves: Mrs. Savage gives each of her stepchildren a private message (spoken or in writing) trusting the recipient with the secret location of her millions. Each, naturally, runs off to claim the wealth without informing the others. And all of them have been lied to.
- Not What It Looks Like: A non-romantic version occurs for both Lily Belle and Titus, when they go hunting for Mrs. Savage's bonds. Lily Belle is arrested as a vandal when she searches a stuffed porpoise at the Natural History Museum, while Titus gets intercepted as he's digging up the President's hothouse.Titus: Eight FBI men jumped me—pushed my face in the dirt. Thought I was planting a bomb.
- Outliving One's Offspring: Florence's son, John Thomas, died while still a baby.
- The Reveal: Because Jeff always keeps one side of his face covered, neither Mrs. Savage nor the audience realize until Act II that his scar is psychosomatic.
- Slut-Shaming: Mrs. Savage does this to Lily Belle, who's had six husbands.
- Survivor Guilt: Jeff survived unscathed when his bomber was shot down in World War II, but he lost his entire crew. Out of guilt, he convinces himself that he received a hideous facial scar, which he covers constantly.
- Too Dumb to Live: Mrs. Savage tells her stepkids that the money is hidden in the most ridiculous places... and they swallow it whole.
- Truth Serum: The Savage children want Dr. Emmett to use one on their stepmother to force her to reveal where she's hidden the bonds. Averted by medical ethics.
- Violently Protective Wife: Downplayed; when one of the Savage children does something that bothers Jeff, Nurse Willie charges up and and tells him to get away from Jeff. Unusually for this trope, Jeff doesn't know they're married.
- Wicked Stepmother: Possibly why the Savage children instantly decided to hate Ethel, although in this case, it's more like Wicked Stepchildren.
