Stop, You're Killing Me

THE STORIES: In LAUGHS, ETC. a woman tells about an impromptu party that she and her lawyer husband gave in their East Village apartment. The woman is a complete phony, totally, unlovably false. She has not a shred of kindness or feeling in her sleek, fat-cat exterior, and as she talks, on and on, with a kind of self-congratulatory cleverness, her character slowly yet surely reveals itself. (1 woman.) TERRIBLE JIM FITCH is set in a motel room where the relationship between a girl hustler, and a man, a small-time crook who specializes in robbing churches, is explored. The girl is horribly scarred on the cheek, and it soon becomes evident that the man did it. Their relationship is a complex one. The man, in a way, loves the girl, being totally dependent upon her for simple human involvement. But he has a weakness for violence, a weakness played on by the girl. The man talks about his life, his mother, and generally muses on his philosophy. The girl is sullen and cowed. The outcome is never in any doubt-but the psychological motivation of the manic-depressive killer and his alternating moods is always engrossing. (1 man, 1 woman.) BAD BAD JO-JO. Kayo Hathaway is a popular writer who has created, in Bad Jo-Jo, a figure more celebrated than even James Bond. It has made Kayo, a nasty man by any standard, even his own, enormously wealthy. Kayo is leaving the country to live in Switzerland. After a farewell party, he is being interviewed by a young man, who is amusingly yet almost unbelievably gauche. Kayo is not quite convinced that he is a reporter, especially when he brings his friend to the apartment. The finale is grotesquely macabre, but the play holds the interest to the end. (3 men.)Herlihy, James L. is the author of 'Stop, You're Killing Me ', published 1969 under ISBN 9780822210849 and ISBN 0822210843.