The Cameo

A play of memory, the action begins as Dan Hamilton, a successful writer in his middle years, recalls his parents, his youth and, most particularly, the day he brought his widowed mother to the nursing home where she would live out her final days

As Dan tries to attend to the practical matters of getting his mother settled, she eschews the cold, institutional present in favor of memories of happier, times and events, when home and family were still a tangible, joyful reality

Moved by her recollections, and deeply aware of his debt to his parents, Dan wrestles with the guilt he feels at cutting his mother off from the last vestiges of the richly purposeful, independent life which had been hers - but, sadly, there is no alternative

When he leaves his mother he takes with him both the cameo which had been one of her prized possessions and, also, the wrenching knowledge that the frail, forgetful old lady he leaves behind and the vibrant, lively woman of his childhood are still, unaccountably, one and the same person

Produced with great critical and popular success by the famed Actors Theatre of Louisville, this haunting, gently affecting play explores the anguish and sense of loss felt by a son who must commit his aged mother to a nursing home

" a heartfelt, tightly written story has the ring of absolute truth" ~ Louisville Times