Set during the course of Easter
weekend, 2001, “Bad Hurt On Cedar Street” chronicles the
tribulations of the Kendall family of Providence, Rhode Island. The
play is a family drama of survival and the power of the human spirit
to persevere. The Kendall family is lead by the fiercely determined
matriarch, Elaine, who daily battles the caretaking problems of her
son, Kent, an emaciated drug addict whose Desert Storm injuries have
left him addled by narcotics, and her daughter, Phoebe, a retarded
young woman from birth, who is virtually unrestrainable. Phoebe has
fallen for Willy Crum, a fellow developmentally challenged man whose
unannounced visits to the Kendall home further exacerbate Elaine’s
ability to care for Kent and Phoebe. Elaine’s other son, Todd, a
Providence Municipal bus driver, tries to help, but no longer lives at
home. Elaine’s husband, Ed, busies himself with avocational interests
in the midst of the building chaos that surrounds him, unable to face
his past or his present.