In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel

Upon its original opening in 1969, Clive Barnes described the synopsis in the New York Times:

"Superficially the play is about the painter–famous, rich and lost–and his wife, who find themselves in a Tokyo hotel. The wife, wildly promiscuous, tries to seduce the Japanese barman in the hotel bar. The artist is in his room, naked on a canvas with a spray-gun, trying to develop a new technique, almost confident that he has invented color. Almost confident, but not quite, for he lacks confidence the way an anemic man lacks blood. The artist, in the final stages of some spiritual or physical dissolution, at last joins his wife in the bar. But, she has sent to Manhattan for his picture dealer and friend. She then goes out, presumably to find a man. A few days later the dealer arrives in Tokyo. The wife, determined to be free, tries to persuade the friend to take the artist back to New York, under sedation if necessary."