The play opens with a Kandinsky painting revolving slowly above the stage. It is painted on both sides, one side “geometric and somber” and the other “wild and vivid” (3). The painting stops with the somber side facing the audience. 

Ouisa and Flan Kittredge, a middle-aged couple dressed “in nightdress” (3), run onto the stage. They are described as “very attractive” and “very agitated” (3). Addressing the audience directly, they panic about an intruder having been in their home. Frantically, they try to decide if anything has been stolen and exclaim that they “could have been killed” (4) and “it was awful awful awful awful (6).

The Kittredges recount the events of the previous evening. As they do so, they “pull off their robes and are smartly dressed for dinner” (6) and begin alternating between recreating the evening and commenting on it to the audience.

Flan explains that he is “an art dealer” (7) and that he “had a deal coming up” (8) where he could purchase a Cezanne painting and sell it at a considerable profit to “the Japanese” (14). However, he was short by two million dollars, a figure he dismisses as “superfluous” (8).