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Cephus, accompanied by two women playing a suitcase of character roles, narrates the story of his down-home North Carolina childhood shooting craps in a graveyard, fighting mosquitoes as big as turkeys, pulling drowned raccoons out of bootleg-whiskey vats. The atmosphere of proud nostalgia is soon tempered by Cephus's imprisonment, at 19, for resisting the draft. Once out, Cephus migrates north to the city, where he discovers sin and failure. His story is depressing in the retellinghe dates an unrepentant gold digger, loses his job and apartment, and becomes a homeless drug addictbut Kristi Steele's comic timing keeps the tone light in this production directed by Ron OJ Parson.

Eventually, though, Cephus's country roots call him back home, and the play's sentimental undercurrent spews up like lava, with a contrived plot twist that incinerates credibility. "I can't really be bitter," Cephus sums up. But he has the right.