A heartwarming play by John Patrick, first produced in 1950.
Mrs. Ethel P. Savage has just inherited $10 million from her late husband, Jonathan Savage. After her husband's death, she remembers her crazy, youthful dreams and sets up the Jonathan Savage Memorial Fund, to help others achieve their crazy, youthful dreams. On learning of this, 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 Snipe Hunt 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, John Thomas, 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 and former concert pianist whose plane was shot down in World War II; he constantly hides a disfiguring scar and gave up his career rather than traumatize audiences. It’s not until late in the show that the audience gets to see just how severe the wound is, namely, that it’s purely imaginary, a manifestation of Jeff’s Survivor Guilt at surviving the crash unscathed when the rest of his crew perished.
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. Which is only natural, since his wife IS Miss Willie, which Jeff has forgotten.
- 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've found refuge in an egg-shell 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.
- Don't Look At Me: Jeff constantly covers one side of his face with his hand to hide the scars he received in the war. Mrs. Savage eventually talks him into briefly lowering his hand and showing her. This allows her to see that the scars are purely psychological. He was the Sole Survivor when his plane was shot down during the war, but his Survivor Guilt won’t let him accept that he escaped unscathed.
- 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.
- Jeff is happily married but hasn’t seen his wife in years, and gets nervous when Miss Willie singles him out for attention because it would make his wife livid. Making it even harder, his wife IS Miss Willie, who works at the Cloisters so she can be by Jeff every step of the way through his recovery even though he doesn’t yet recognize her, and she 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 his traumatic war experience.
- 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.
- Snipe Hunt: Mrs. Savage tells her stepkids that the money is hidden in the most ridiculous places... and they swallow it whole.
- Survivor Guilt: Jeff was the Sole Survivor when his bomber was shot down in World War II, costing him his entire crew. Out of guilt, he convinced himself that he received a hideous facial scar, which he covers constantly.
- 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 Girlfriend: Downplayed; when one of the Savage children does something that bothers Jeff, Nurse Willie charges up and tells them to get away from him. Unusual, in that there’s no formal relationship between the two that Jeff knows about... because of his war trauma, he’s forgotten that Nurse Willie is actually his violently protective WIFE.
- Wicked Stepmother: Inverted — when Mrs. Savage married, she wound up with three Wicked Stepchildren.