Hal Corley

Dramatic Comedy

2m, 1f

Unit Set

In the summer of 1969, Beau Stanley's last hurrah before heading off to study architecture in college, doting Mama Lillian vows to help him finally lose his baby fat. Armed with a supply of diet pills and a food-free regimen that includes tearing down a family room wall, 3 a.m. trips to Dulles Airport and blazing, amphetamine-fueled days on the beach, mother and son spend a memorable vacation together. But Beau's weight loss isn't restless Lillian's only project, and in an unguarded moment, she reveals her just-begun affair with a travelling defense contractor, Jack Carew. Once Lillian introduces son and lover, Beau's caught in the oedipal crossfire of a covert and explosive new alliance, forced to cover his Mama's many absences from home. Over the next decade, Jack's repeated pledge to end his own loveless marriage and sweep Lillian away proves a hollow promise. As increasingly beleaguered Beau sacrifices his own independence to help his mother confront her disillusionment and finally, betrayal, parent-child roles are turned upside down. Mama and Jack Carew is a harrowing, oftentimes black-comedic portrait of an unlikely triangle.

FEE: $75.00 per performance.

Character Descriptions:
LILLIAN: 45 - 55; an unstoppable Southern house afire: raucous, ribald, and irascible; deeply unfulfilled, at times quietly ruminative, aware she's a casualty of too many regrettable choices.
BEAU: 18-29; always incisive, at first shyly self-effacing and needy, later brutally frank, possessing the survivor's wicked sense of the ridiculous that's proof positive he's his mother's son.
JACK: 45 - 55, an amiable, loquacious winner no longer quite at the top of his game; until his considerable charm gives way to deceit, he smoothly scores.

Other Hal Corley titles available from Samuel French:
Easter Monday
ODD