NATURAL DISASTERS

by Heifner, Jack

TROPICAL DEPRESSION. In a slightly seedy resort hotel on a remote Caribbean island, two high-living Texas housewives, Gloria and Janine, are enjoying a respite from their rich but boring husbands. They are determined to savor their holiday to the fullest, but nature has other plans. First they get burned to a crisp by the tropical sun, then a hurricane imprisons them in their tacky room. In between, however, Gloria defiantly spends a great deal of her absent husband’s money on various “art treasures,” while Janine (a former Miss Texas) pays for the favors of a handsome lifeguard, an act which jolts them both back to reality and makes them reexamine just who they are and what they really want from life. (2 women.) In the second play, TWISTER, Betty and Roy are apparently the only survivors of a tornado that has destroyed their tiny Texas town and all their worldly goods. After the initial shock wears off Roy sets about trying to restore things to what they were, while Betty, suddenly freed from all the junk she owned, wants to move on and start over. The resulting debate is both hilarious and revealing, as Roy resists the notion that what they had was nothing great while Betty pours out all her hopes and frustrations that have been bottled up for years. In the end it is the dream that triumphs: Betty charges off to catch a bus that may never arrive, and Roy attempts to hold onto the present that is fast becoming the past. (1 man, 1 woman.)