The Road To The Graveyard

Synopsis

The place is a small town in Texas, the time 1939, shortly before the onset of World War II.

India, a spinster who is resigned to the task of caring for her aging, and increasingly senile, parents, is hopeful that her weak-willed brother, Sonny, who holds a menial job at the local movie house, will seize the opportunity to open his own theatre, a prospect which could bring the family the security she so desperately longs for.

But Sonny, indecisive as always, is fearful of striking out on his own and is resigned, instead, to settling for marriage with an older woman deemed unsuitable by the family.

In a series of subtle, deeply affecting scenes, we come to learn the elements of India's disaffection; her concern for her failing parents; her impatience with her gossipy lifelong friend and fellow spinster, Lyda, whose existence has become as sterile as her own; and her disappointment with the feckless Sonny, who seems unable to take hold of his own destiny, much less assume the responsibility for the fate of others.

In the end the play is a moving study of loss and desperation, and of decent, well-intentioned people who must stand by helplessly while a way of life is forfeited to a changing order which they are unable to fully comprehend or accommodate.