CBS Playhouse

The power failure that blacked out the Northeast in 1965 provides a key dramatic element in this play, set in the 50th-floor offices of Cohalen and Associates. The business day is ending when the power failure occurs, stopping elevators and office machines, and trapping some of the workers in semidarkness. Candles are found, liquor and ice are gathered from the executive suites, and a quiet party begins. As the evening progresses and inhibitions are swept away, the stranded workers begin to reveal themselves in unexpected ways. The drama focuses on--Saul Novick, embittered because his clients are being stolen by Peter Hoyt, an aggressive colleague who claims that the firm's owner approves of interoffice piracy. Art Richardson, a cautious junior partner enjoying a brief liaison with one of the secretaries. Jerry Arnot, slipping in stature and making pathetic efforts to regain lost ground. And Novick's girl friend Jess, unsure of herself and their relationship.

This contemporary drama about idealism and indifferent reality puts the accent on youth; the leading players are young unknowns, and the playwright, 23-year-old Ron Cowen, is the youngest writer to be commissioned by CBS. Rich Meridan is white, well-to-do and wondering. He's about to enter law school so he can make a lot of money. Rich isn't sure if that's what he wants from life--but that's what his parents want. As he puts it, 'I never got a chance to choose. I had everything before I could hope to have it.' Macy Stander is black, a cut above poverty and in the seventh grade. He's young enough to dream, but his outlook is too bleak for him to risk the disappointment: 'The things you think about aren't gonna come true.' Both youths are stifled--Rich by having too much, Macy by having too little. They meet when Rich, clumsily but earnestly seeking to make a worthwhile contribution, offers to work as an unpaid tutor to ghetto youths. His pupil is Macy, caught between the distant glitter

Ned, a New York magazine editor, tries to escape the responsibilities of his rocky marriage, the neediness of his two teen daughters and especially the agony of putting his autistic son into an institution by thinking back on his boyhood in Massachusetts. As he returns to that life as an adult—walking into scenes of the 1940s with his parents as an adult—he realizes that life always was a challenging proposition. The boomeranging back and forth in time presented Schaefer and Gene Hackman, in his most outstanding TV performance, with enormous demands.

When carpenter Peter Schermann needed a home, he built it with his own hands. And the house, like Peter, was strong; solid as a tree. But now he's old, too old. His children have no room for him. Peter winds up in a rest home--where he angrily rebels. He resents being treated as if he were senile or crippled. And he is offended by the empty atmosphere of waiting for death. Loring Mandel's compassionate drama follows Peter's lonely, courageous struggle to find a life in a world that has shut him out.