Recommended by Philip Middleton Williams

This thoughtful and charming monologue from the heart is speaking to a generation, but I am sure that it applies to all ages, and Paul Smith tells it so well that even if you're younger -- or older -- than Mervyn, you'll connect with it. It's reflective, funny, and most of all genuinely honest and loving.

By the way, for me it was Paul McCartney.

Greek mythology makes much more sense than some of those tales they told us in Sunday school... at least to me: life lessons, consequences for selfish and human failings, and monsters with more than just terrorizing us into behaving like the rest of the flock. When the tale is told by a master storyteller such as Scott Sickles, it takes on an even more human touch, even if the protagonist is bull-headed. (Sorry, couldn't resist.) And in the telling of the quest for understanding, he lifts us out of mere fable and into the truths we need to see.

This may be a Christmas play because it takes place at that time of year, but the interaction and the spirits, so to speak, of the moment are universal. John Patrick Bray has a beautiful way of giving us very distinct characters that creates a tension that is palpable; old grudges and memories die hard. The gift, though, is more than just the most expensive scotch in the store: it's the realization that those old grudges and memories can be dissolved with a shot or two and the undercurrent of sweet music.

Having read all of these scenes one by one, it is only right that Joe Swenson brings this complicated and devastating story to its conclusion. What I was left with was a sense of how strong the human spirit can become in the face of crushing adversity. That Joey not only survives but grows up with his battered soul intact is worth being told and shared, even if it is hard to see. The dimensions of the characters is testimony to his ability to make us care about each of them. And the ending is a monument to strength.

Is it over? Is it really over? At long last, is Joey's nightmare really coming to an end? Perhaps... but promises are never unconditional, and even if amends are attempted, the scars and echoes linger.

Joe Swenson's history of his life as seen in this series of short plays is as much universal as it is personal. We the reader or the audience may not know first-hand what Joey is going through and what makes up his world, but it is impossible not to understand it at a visceral level and connect with the despair and hope in them.

The most disturbing element in this series is Joey's refusal to fight back. Disturbing, but given the situation, understandable. His stoicism and suffering in near-silence demonstrate a strength that ten-year-olds seem to have as well as his shrugging acceptance of his punishment and abuse are what keep him alive and somehow have hope that he will survive. He has to, and as he realizes that there is a world outside his prison, we begin to see the glimmer not only of hope, but of escape and retribution.

The damage has been done, but like many wounds to both the body and the mind, the healing can happen with care, attention, and time. Joey's strength is more than just enduring the physical and mental abuse. It is in the hope that he has placed in his own abilities to withstand them. The suspense is not just in the telling of the tale, but in seeing the hope, however faint, begin to grow that deliverance will come.

The harrowing sensation running through this play -- indeed, the entire series -- is that it is not over. That the torture, the pain, the dread of anticipation will continue unabated. In a way I hope against hope to find out more and that karma, if not justice, comes through for Joey.

What it must have taken for Joe Swenson to tell this story makes me shudder, but then, telling the tale is, for some, an element of recovery, of vindication, and of reclamation. My heart goes out to him and anyone else who suffered the unimaginable.

Pain and trauma, isolation and loneliness can make us create another world for ourselves. It's not so much escaping as it is acceptance of a new reality where the life in small doses and counted by marks on a wall -- something seen when someone is incarcerated and life is numbingly predictable. In this moment in the series, Joey's acceptance of his fate is not without hope -- what else is there? -- but his inability to reveal the worst of his traumas even to Imaginary Friend fills us with dread at what is kept secret.

In this second entry in the series, the Imaginary Friend becomes an integral part of this story and Joey's ability to deal with the harrowing abuse at the hand of his captor. There is a clinical term for it; disassociation, I think, that is used to escape from the brutality, and this becomes a most effective way of explaining, of rationalizing the inhumanity that Joey is going through. As a way to tell the story, it is powerful. As a way of life, it is terrifying.