RIDE DOWN MOUNT MORGAN, THE

by Miller, Arthur

Two women meet in a hospital intensive care ward, after each learns of an automobile accident which has seriously injured their husband. The two visitors, unknown to each other, soon realise that it is the same accident, and indeed, is in fact the same man. Lyman Felt is a bigamist. A successful middle-aged businessman, Lyman has juggled two wives for nine years, ever since he was forced to choose between the stability and status of his first wife Theo and the excitement of his relationship with Leah, his mistress. Instead he chose both. Through a series of flashbacks interspersed with Lyman’s hospital room, memory slips into fact as accusations fly between the women and his daughter Bessie, but fact merges into fantasy as Lyman attempts to justify his past actions. All of them, he points out, have been happier in this time than ever before, but ultimately his innocent selfishness results in psychologically bruised women scattered about him, who ultimately make him pay the price by abandoning him. `The situation is everything: comedy if one thinks, tragedy if one feels. The result is an immensely satisfying evening’s theatre.’ - Financial Times.