behind with Teddy's relatives as "one of the family" and Teddy returning home to their three sons in America without her. Act one The play begins in the midst of what becomes an ongoing power struggle between the two more dominant men: the father, Max, and his middle son, Lenny. Max and the other men put down one another, expressing their "feelings of resentment," with Max feminising his brother Sam, whom he intimates is homosexual, while, ironically, himself claiming to have himself "given birth" to his three sons. Teddy arrives with his wife, Ruth. He reveals that he married Ruth in London six years earlier and that the couple subsequently moved to the U.S. and had three sons prior to this visit to the family home ("homecoming") to introduce her. The couple's mutual discomfort with each other, marked by her restless desire to go out exploring after he has gone to sleep, then followed by her sexually suggestive first-time encounter with her dangerous, and somewhat misogynistic, brother-in-law Lenny, begins to expose problems in the marriage. She strikes a nerve when she calls him "Leonard"; he tells her that no one, aside from his late mother, has ever called him that. After a sexually charged conversation between Lenny and Ruth, she exits. Awakened by their voices, the patriarch Max comes downstairs. Lenny does not tell Max about Teddy and Ruth's arrival at the house and engages in more verbal sparring with Max. The scene ends in a blackout. When the lights come up the scene has changed to the following morning. Max comes down to make breakfast. When Teddy and Ruth appear and Max discovers they have been there all night without his knowledge, Max is initially enraged, assuming that Ruth is a prostitute. After being told that Ruth and Teddy have married and that she is his daughter-in-law, Max appears to make some effort to reconcile with Teddy. Act two This act opens with the men's ritual of sharing the lighting of cigars, traditionally associated with phallic imagery after lunch. Teddy's cigar goes out prematurely, the symbolism of which is clear. Max's subsequent sentimental pseudo-reminiscences of family life with his late wife, Jessie, and their "boys" and his experiences as a butcher also end abruptly with a cynical twist. After Teddy's marriage to Ruth receives Max's blessing, she relaxes and, focusing their attention on her ("Look at me"), she reveals