This ensemble play depicts four artist-types, all at a breaking point in their unsatisfying careers. A recently arrived photographer
serves as some sort of catalyst for the action that will take place. All the characters rent adjoining studios in the same building.
Fuchsia writes
romance novels by pacing, chain-smoking, and speaking into a small tape recorder. The story she writes is essentially the same one over and over again, because that’s what people want out of a romance novel. Something happens to Fuchsia’s heroine, though, and she breaks free from the plot formula. She ties up her love interest and puts him in the backseat of his car. She drives them to a motel, they have sex, and then she walks off into the desert on a quest to figure out what romance really is. She meets a woman painting a rock formation, and they begin a relationship. Fuchsia goes next door to Jade, and they discuss their artistic problems and form a real connection.
Jade is a struggling painter. She has been recently commissioned to paint a portrait of a rich woman’s poodle, and she desperately needs the money from this job to pay her rent and buy more art supplies. Jade can’t just paint the poodle, though. Every time she starts a new canvas, the dog ends up dressed as Elvis or having an affair with a movie star. She paints a religious picture of a dog collar with light shining through it, and realizes it was a mistake to fight against the dog’s many portrayals.
Violet answers the phone for a community help line. She can’t really do anything to solve people’s problems; she can only dispense other phone numbers. More often than not, her callers are abusive or prank. After someone mentions birds, Violet goes off the deep end pretending she is a bird. Eventually, she believes herself to be a bird that needs to migrate, but she has lost her flock.
Gray teaches English as a second language to Russian immigrants. He is slowly going out of his mind because his students always forget the being verb in their sentences. As his breakdown spirals out of control, he can no longer remember the being verb in his own sentences. Then, he can suddenly speak Russian, but not English. He goes to talk to Violet, who doesn’t understand a word of his Russian. Gray understands that Violet is looking for her flock, and he miraculously discovers that he can speak in a chirpy bird language that Violet knows. They kiss, and Gray’s speech returns to normal.
While all this is going on, Jerry wanders from studio to studio, listening to everyone’s stories. He first develops
pictures of the women taken secretly. Later, he develops pictures of them as children. When the connections have been made, and everyone is somewhat happy, Jerry puts his pictures in his suitcase and moves on.