The Play

As the play opens, we learn that Uncle Josh's son, Reuben, has left Swanzey with a clouded reputation and gone to New York.

Uncle Josh, a true old-style rube, sets out to find his boy and becomes totally confused as he tries to take the measure of the city by what he knows of the world from his life in Swanzey.

The mix of pathos and wit give the play its unique character as a comedy-melodrama in the tradition of theater in the late nineteenth century. Predictably, the play has a happy ending.