Synopsis

The central action of the play takes place in an army barracks in a remote Alaskan outpost during the Korean conflict. Restive from boredom and the numbing cold, the men, egged on by a sadistic corporal, turn on Johnson, a "misfit" whose sensitivity and original turn of mind set him apart from the others. As the taunting of Johnson progresses from high-spirited pranks to near cruelty, a second story is unfolded in a small playing area downstage: A young girl, hidden away as she waits out her illegitimate pregnancy, laments the abandonment and indifference of her family and friends. She is Johnson's mother, whose heart-rending plight is echoed and extended in the parallel action of the army scenes, and through the shocking fate which, sadly but inevitably, befalls her son.