You know I can’t Hear You When the Water’s Running - Four Short Plays - The Shock of Recognition & The Footsteps of Doves & I’ll be Home for Christmas & I’m Herbert

Hugely successful Broadway comedy on the ever-popular theme of sex. The New York Daily News outlines the
four short plays as follows ... 
” ... (THE SHOCK OF RECOGNITION) breaks in on a difference of opinion between ...
an earnest young dramatist and ... his matter-of-fact producer who doesn’t like the opening moment of the play.
A wife is having breakfast in bed and she says something to her husband, who is in the bathroom. So
he comes out, jaybird naked, and yells to her. ‘You know I can’t hear you when the water’s running.’
The producer doesn’t think this confrontation is quite nice or necessary. The author insists that the scene is
quite important—and, after all, it lasts only an instant. So a quarrel over taste develops, and a job-hunting actor ...
becomes involved. He eagerly begins to strip, demonstrating how he would handle the role. Also involved is ...
the producer’s secretary .... (THE FOOTSTEPS OF DOVES shows us a couple who, ] wed twenty-five years,
come to a store to pick out a new bed or beds. Should they buy twin beds or a double? They don’t get much
sales effort from the salesman, ... for the salesman is gay. Into the discussion, uninvited, comes a blonde young thing ...
who wants a big bed because she is all alone. (I’LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS) maintains the light humor of the
first two, but at base it is serious and touching as it shows [parents] discussing the sex education of their almost-adult
children, a girl and boy. [The father] is quite moving when he learns in a letter that his son is cutting adrift from the parental
harbor. For a windup there is (I’M HERBERT) about two old, old people sitting on a porch in a pair of rocking chairs
and talking. Just talking—and of course they don’t know how funny they are. Each has had one or more
previous marriages and perhaps a few flings, but they are hazy as to details. In fact, they don’t always know
which one the other one is.”

 

Add to cart