Bad Habits

Bad Habits by Terrence McNally. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780822214359.

In the first play, DUNELAWN, we are in an expensive retreat for the unhappily married, where the wheel-chaired director, Dr. Pepper, dispenses a definitely unique sort of marital guidance. His theory includes complete indulgence in such "bad habits" as smoking, drinking and sexual promiscuity-which seems to work wonders for his patients, whose wacky case histories are each examined in hilarious detail. In the second play, RAVENSWOOD, the approach is quite the opposite. Here the saintly Dr. Toynbee injects his straitjacketed charges with tranquilizing drugs to calm such urges-but again the catalogue of aberrations revealed in his patients is subjected to close, and enormously funny, scrutiny. Both plays can be performed by the same cast, as each calls for 6 men and 2 women.