Handy Dandy was written by the American author of such well-known other plays as The Miracle Worker and A Cry of Players. Basically a two-character play (with spoken bits by other unseen actors) and set in Boston in 1983, it was first produced in 1984.
It explores the initially combative and eventually very complicated relationship between conservative District Court judge Henry Pulaski and Sister Molly Egan. She is a "screwball" (his word) nun who has been arrested for trespass while staging a protest at a Cambridge Laboratory where nuclear weapons are produced. Each of them provokes and challenges the other, and each is changed by the other, in a script distinguished by rich characterizations, salty humor, and well-earned sentiment. Handy Dandy has been seen numerous times in recent years in a touring production featuring Audra Lindley and James Whitmore, and was recently revived briefly in New York City.
