Echoes

N. Richard NashFull Length, DramaCharacters: 2 male, 1 female Interior SetA young man and woman build a low keyed paradise of happiness within an asylum, only to have it shattered by the intrusion of the outside world. The two characters search, at times agonizingly, to determine the difference between illusion and reality. The effort is lightened by moments of shared love and "pretend" games, like decorating Christmas trees that are not really there. The theme of love, vulnerable to the surveillances of the asylum, and the ministrations of the psychiatrist, a nonspeaking part seems as fragile in the constrained setting as it often is in the outside world. "Even with the tragic, somber theme there is a note of hope and possible release and the situations presented also have universal applications to give strong effect . . . intellectual, but charged with emotion." Reed.