Setting and Plot

Setting:

1937 mansion of Victorian Gothic style in the Garden District of New Orleans

Plot:

      The play begins with Mrs. Venable showing Dr. Cukrowicz her late son's garden.  The garden is very strange and looks like a well-groomed jungle.  Mrs. Venable tells the doctor that her son was a poet, and poetry was not only his occupation but also his life.  Sebastian, her son, wrote 25 poems--one for each year of his life.  She tells the doctor a story about when she went to the Encantadas because her son read a description that Herman Melville wrote.  When they got to the Encantadas, they saw sea turtles hatching and racing off to the sea, but flesh eating birds came down from the sky and ate most of them.  It was during that trip that Sebastian believed he saw God.

        Mrs. Venable begins talking about the woman she suspects has to do something with her son's death.  She is now at St. Mary's being taken care of by Sister Felicity, but Mrs. Venable wants Dr. Cukrowicz to do a lobotomy to stop her babbling; however, the Lion's View asylum has no money.  Mrs. Venable plans to set up a Sebastian Venable Memorial Foundation which can help him with his financial problems.  Ms. Foxhill suddenly comes into the room to tell Mrs. Venable that Catharine Holly is at the house.  Mrs. Venable becomes nervous and runs to get a daiquiri.

        A few minutes later Catharine takes out a cigarette to smoke, but Sister Felicity demands her to put it out.  Catharine gets so upset that she burnt Sister Felicity's hand.  Catharine begins to tell Sister Felicity about how she loved Sebastian, but he wouldn't let her save him.  She becomes excited and yells, but Sister Felicity hears her name and leaves the room.  Sister Felicity soon returns with Catharine's mother and brother.  Mrs. Holly explains to Catharine that she was brought down to explain to Mrs. Venable what happened in Cabeza de Lobo, but George and Mrs. Holly believe that the story she has been telling is a lie.  If she doesn't tell the real story, they will not get the money they inherited from Sebastian's will. 

        Mrs. Venable enters the room and informs the Holly family that she will be sending Catharine to the Lion's View asylum.  Catharine gets upset because she thinks that Mrs. Venable is mad that Sebastian asked her to go on the trip with him instead of her, but Catharine wants her to know that the only reason he asked her instead of his mother is because Mrs. Venable had a stroke.  Mrs. Venable thinks that Sebastian took Catharine on the trip because Catharine made a scene at a Mardi Gras party over a married man, and Sebastian felt sorry for her.  Catharine and Mrs. Venable began screaming at each other so the doctor asks if he could speak to Catharine alone to find out her story.

        Catharine tells the story of how Sebastian died in Cabeza de Lobo.  While they were eating dinner at a small restaurant, Catharine and Sebastian get attacked by beggars wanting bread and tried to serenade them with music.  Sebastian had a heart condition and could not handle the music, so he ran out towards a hill.  All the children followed, and they took over him and killed him.  Mrs. Venable does not believe Catherine's story.  She demands that Dr. Cukrowicz to get this story out of her brain, but Dr. Cukrowicz believes that her story is true.