THE WEST SIDE WALTZ by Ernest Thompson (1982, Hardcover Edition)

Description

THE WEST SIDE WALTZ
a play by Ernest Thompson
The author of ON GOLDEN POND sets his new comedy-drama in the Upper West Side apartment of Margaret Mary Elderdice.  Seventy-three and widowed, the former concert pianist is in failing health; yet she is determined not to give in to her increasing infirmities.  Stubbornly independent, she merely tolerates the attentions of Cara Varnum, her dotty neighbor and often unwelcome visitor.  Cara's "need to be needed" does little to soften Margaret Mary; it is only their common bond, music, that holds together the shaky alliance.  Then, into their rather humdrum world of duets for piano and violin, arrives Robin Bird, an attractive young aspiring actress on the mend after her recent divorce.  Margaret Mary hires Robin as a companion, but unlike Cara, Robin refuses to be dominated and bullied.  Under the influence of Margaret Mary, however, Robin's natural exuberance slowly begins to fade, a situation the older woman finds intolerable and sets out to remedy.
The play spans a period of two years, during which Ernest Thompson follows the growth and change in these three women's lives, offering a message of friendship, independence, and hope.  As Katherine Hepburn, star of the Broadway production of the play, writes in her introduction, Thompson gathers together a "group of average humans . . . with a warmth and humor and understanding that are sheer delight . . . He reveals them to us with an incredible sensitivity, a delicious humor, and a remarkable sense of words and rhythms."
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