Plot Synopsis
Headstrong wannabe fashion designer Flora Mezaros is a member of an artists' co-operative of bohemian types - dancers, musicians, designers - struggling to find work during the Great Depression. Hoping to find a job which pays at least $15 a week, she is hired by the head of a large department store at $30. She falls in love with Harry Toukarian, another struggling designer, who attempts to convert Flora to his Communist ideals. Even though it compromises her job in an organisation which does not recognise the new unions she seeks to hold down both job and relationship. Complicating matters is a predatory Communist matriarch, Comrade Charlotte, who wants Harry for herself, a secretary with designs on her boss, and Kenny and Maggie, a jazz dancing duo with their sights on greater things.
In the end, however, Flora finds herself torn between two vastly different ideals, and has to sacrifice one or the other for true happiness.
In the Vineyard Theatre revival, the story was told as though in a presentation by the Federal Theatre Project, part of the WPA established by President Roosevelt (voiced by Art Carney). A company of actors played all the roles, with obvious props and scenery, not trying to hide the 'amateur' look and feel of the show.
Read more about this topic: Flora The Red Menace
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