"The Curious Savage" by John Patrick...is a disarming comedy about Ethel Savage, whose grown step-children are determined to stifle her indulgence of her own generous whims.

After having been happily subservient to a husband she loved until his death, Mrs. Savage wants to try her own wings. She has money and begins to spend it on granting the off-beat wishes of interestingly off-beat people.

Her step-children, a politician, a judge, and a society woman, are appalled at her waste of money. When she takes to carrying a large teddy bear wherever she goes, they commit her to a comfortable home for the mentally disturbed. There she meets several other "guests...."

Mrs. Savage is a compassionate, imaginative woman and is willing to take her associates as she finds them. They seem happy enough in their delusions and she probes gently to find the human beings underneath.

Then her step-children discover that she has put all her money into bearer bonds, which she has hidden, and they turn into a trio of harpies!

The play is full of Mrs. Savage's sly one-liner witticisms as she thoroughly enjoys contrasting the gentle, considerate patients with her driven and selfish family.

*Mary Cogswell Baum, "'The Curious Savage' at the SM Playhouse Is A Compassionate Comedy," Mountain Views, October 21, 1999.

I played Lilly Belle, one of the step-children.