Between Daylight and Boonville

The title is more than metaphorical - there really is a town called Daylight in southern Indiana, and there really is a Boonville not too far away. It is strip-mine coal country, but "everything between Daylight and Boonville's been stripped away," a miner's wife says. She means the coal. At least she thinks she does

Except for a miner who injured his hand and can't work for a while, the characters in Williams' play are either miners' wives or their children. Living in rusted trailers-Mark Choinski's set bespeaks an existence free of amenities -- the women spend their days in conversation, never taking steps to fix the things that make them unhappy

The youngest wife, Carla, has threatened to leave her insensitive jerk of a husband so many times that when she reaches the part about how this time it's really for good, the other women finish her sentence with her

The slightly older Marlene, devoted to her two little boys and eight months' pregnant with a third child, pores over magazines and critiques the way celebrities dress and behave

Lorrette, oldest of the three, has saved almost enough money for a down payment on Florida retirement condominium. She's quick with a wisecrack, but this barely covers up her sadness at being shunned by her own children and grandchildren

And then a series of explosions at the mine indicates that things are about to get worse ...