Answers From the Center of the Universe About Things Unknown

Through the interlacing of monologues, we examine the lives of three people. J.J. Myers, a single parent in his 40s and recently widowed, experiences a chance encounter with a pharmacist who has just learned he is terminally ill. Late at night, long after the pharmacy is closed, both men sip whiskey in the store's dimly lighted office as the pharmacist etches the profile of his colorful life. "I didn't know what to say," reveals J.J. "All I did was listen." William, an upper management executive also in his 40s, confesses how he ambitiously pursued personal and professional gratification but devoted little time to his mother. Now that his mother is dying, "in a cubicle with glass all around," William comes to terms with his self-absorption and his mother's quiet understanding of his selfishness. Jennifer, in her 30s, reveals the pain of growing up as she relives the night when, as a teenager, she overheard her father talking to her departed mother. "I stood in the hallway and listened. He told Mom he loved her and missed her...that her irises were coming up just fine...that he'd begun reading her favorite books to be closer to her mind." Only after Jennifer matures into motherhood does she realize the difficulty involved in understanding oneself and those we love. Winner of the 1988 Great Plains New Play Festival.