La grotte

the long version

This is a play within a play. The cook has been murdered but her employers seem to be indifferent. Her son is in a seminary and in distress. The maid is pregnant. The valet is philandering. The playwright, the central character in this play, says that he has lost his touch and is suffering writer's block. The Harvard Crimson 8/1/1967 noted: "The thick plot involves murder, rape, abortion, white slavery, and class struggle. And yet the author-actor, by continually breaking and repeating scenes and by imposing comic relief, subordinates the plot to his own creative concerns. At the end, the murderer is discovered by coincidence, and the plot is settled."