Synopsis:
Having married an American serviceman during his wartime stint in England, Iris has looked forward to coming to the United Statesto the glittering, glamorous world she has seen depicted in Hollywood movies. But her new husband's home turns out to be Willard Patch, Pennsylvania, a grimy, depressed coal mining town where life is drab and hardscrabble. And her new family isn't much better: Her husband, Joe, is content to live on welfare; her father-in-law is a bigoted tyrant who speaks broken English; her slightly retarded sister-in-law, Katrine, is resentful at having to give up her bedroom; and it is only with her stolid, long-suffering mother-in-law, Marie, that Iris senses the possibility of rapport. Centering on the relationship which grows between these two, and which eventually includes Katrine as well, the action of the play moves inexorably and powerfully through a series of crisessome hilarious, some deeply stirringwhich bring Iris both the understanding she needs to comprehend her fate, and also the strength to break away and seek a better life for herself and her infant daughter.
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