chair, reading a Yiddish newspaper. He is a Russian Jew, well past sixty: clean-shaven, thick gray hair, hooked nose, horn-rimmed spectacles. To the left of the doorway, Greta Fiorentino is leaning out of the window. She is forty, blonde, ruddy-faced and stout. She wears a wrapper of light, flowered material and a large pillow supports her left arm and her ample, uncorseted bosom. In her right hand is a folding paper fan, which she waves languidly.
Throughout the act and, indeed, throughout the play, there is constant noise. The noises of the city rise, fall, intermingle: the distant roar of “L” trains, automobile sirens and the whistles of boats on the river; the rattle of trucks and the indeterminate clanking of metals; fire-engines, ambulances, musical instruments, a radio, dogs barking and human voices calling, quarrelling and screaming with laughter. The noises are subdued and in the background, but they never wholly cease.
A moment after the rise of the curtain, an elderly man enters at the right and walks into the house, exchanging a nod with Mrs. Fiorentino. A Man, munching peanuts, crosses the stage from left to right.
A Voice
[Off-stage]: Char-lie!
