Aunt Dan and Lemon

Dan is a charismatic, eccentric figure, who tells the girl of her love affairs with women but also of an intense imaginary romance with Henry Kissinger.

Dan's worldview is an application of Kissinger's doctrine of realpolitik to private life—amoral, ruthless, and seeing all relationships in terms of dominance and submission.

As the play continues, Dan's stories become more bizarre, including one in which she conspires with a gangster's moll to murder a policeman.

Lemon's inarticulate mother tries to stand up for the value of compassion, but she fails and is made to look foolish and weak by Dan's eloquence.

She concludes with the thought that ordinary people owe killers like Hitler and Kissinger a debt of gratitude for making their self-deceit possible.