| It's 1909 and Herbert Bracewell has retired to
the attic of his New York home with plans to stage a comeback
in a one-man review of his long, if undistinguished career. He
assembles five antique match-lit footlights to mark a playing
area and proceeds to ad-lib ideas for his show, straining to
pull down dusty manuscripts from atop overflowing shelves of
vintage souvenirs, using a stunt dummy to play off of, and
conferring often with his pet, a stuffed crow. Herbert's wife,
Florence, thirty years his junior and once a great success as
an actress, comes to call her husband to bed and is caught up
in his production plans, first with good-humored derision,
then with the suggestion that she join him in the comeback
attempt. |