The American Plan

THE STORY: It is the Catskills, in the summer of 1960. Lili Adler is the troubled twenty-year-old daughter of a wealthy German-Jewish refugee. By the shore of a lake, she meets Nick Lockridge, a golden young man who looks to her as if nothing ever happened to him. Over the summer, Lili comes to view Nick as her savior, and Nick's fondness for Lili grows; but to Eva, Lili's autocratic mother, Nick is an object of suspicion, and the romance that blossoms between him and Lili is an unfortunate condition that must be indulged before it can be obliterated. Eva knows she will find out something about Nick which will unmask his unworthiness. To find it, she patiently manipulates Nick's revelations about his past to prove him unfit for Lili. By play's end, time, past injuries, and the imperatives of history will conspire to bear out Eva's dictum that happiness exists but it's for other people.Richard Greenberg is the author of 'The American Plan', published 1991 under ISBN 9780822200345 and ISBN 0822200341.