interrupts the ceremony, and no one greets him. At the conclusion of the readings the guests file past Dinah's coffin and depart, leaving Sam, Junior, Dede, and François facing one another for the first time. Sam's first words are to Junior, but give way to an explosion of 30 years' anger, reprisal, and confused grief directed at all three young people. Sam breaks down crying, but no one goes to him. In a trio of reminiscence, Junior, Dede, and François recall – via half-remembered letters home – a long-ago time when they were close with their fathers. Junior breaks the spell of remembering with a snap and accosts his father violently. He starts to rhyme – a symptom of his psychosis – and goads Sam with an improvised strip blues. They come to blows, and the coffin lid is knocked shut with a crash. Sam exits furiously, then Dede and François. Junior, alone, becomes aware of his disarray and tenderly runs his hand across his mother's coffin. Act 2 (Incorporating Trouble in Tahiti) Scene 1 At home later that evening, Sam is alone in the master bedroom. Reading Dinah's old diaries makes him angry, but he also feels love for Dinah and realizes that he misses her. The diary evokes a memory of 30 years ago... Scene 2 The scene opens with a scat singing jazz trio which advertises the charms of ideal family life in "Suburbia, U.S.A." of the 1950s. Various prosperous American suburbs are mentioned by name, including Wellesley Hills, Shaker Heights, Highland Park, and Beverly Hills. In their "little white house", Young Sam and Dinah quarrel at breakfast. Among other issues, she accuses him of having an affair with his secretary at work. After ten years of marriage, every day is the same. They wish they could be kind to each other, but there is no real communication between them. In his office Young Sam clinches a deal, making a business loan with his customary élan. The jazz trio extols his business acumen and big heart. On her psychiatrist's couch Dinah relates a dream; as she struggled to find her way out of a dying garden, a voice beckoned to her, promising that love would lead her to "a quiet place". Young Sam summons his (unseen) secretary to his office, pointedly asks if he has ever made any passes at her, and takes her quiet demurrals as