They are comprised of a mysteriously absent son, a nasal whine of a daughter and Vince's wife, whose sole interaction with him is to mutter: "Please cheer up will ya," on her way out to Zumba.
It is no wonder that Susan has invented a rich fantasy life to escape the drudgery of her everyday existence, which includes a largely absent son (Nathan Hertz) who steadfastly refuses to speak to his mother.
In a novella-length monologue delivered with a murderous glee, Samuel Perlman, a retired clothier, addresses his absent son, a thirty-eight-year-old beachcomber whom, his wife tells him, he has "crushed".
Meanwhile, in the backwoods, Rasmus's parents raised a glass to their absent son and listened with a poignant mixture of anxiety and distaste to reports of a new disease scything down homosexuals in the big city.
Though their youngest child, Trip (Mr. Sadoski), a television producer, is present, it's their absent son — a Weather Underground-style political revolutionary who killed himself decades earlier — who looms largest at this gathering.
An elderly woman — her thin frame fashioned from a cow's skeleton — holds a taxidermic cat on her lap; above her is a portrait of a young man, a dear departed husband or absent son.
The plot sends Eddie into the household of a kind, wealthy, dimwitted businessman (Robert Loggia) who mistakes Eddie for a financial genius and lady-killer who is a close friend of his absent son's.
The bomb was not intended for her – it was meant for her absent son, Thomas, also a league referee.
This imaginary or absent son was to become a recurring figure in Albee's work.
(Ben Romney, 33, was the absent son, at least for this trip. A medical resident in radiology, Ben is also the most un-Romney Romney. He's the only brother with blond hair and is described as quiet and focused).
The elderly Eka (Esther Gorintin) worships her absent son, Otar, who went to France in search of work.
