The play is about Wilhelm Reich, whose writings on orgone and psychoanalysis were burned by the US government in 1956, in a fictional afterlife trial.

The many factual and fictional characters in the play include Marilyn Monroe, Uncle Sam, and Wilhelm Reich himself.

Reich is prosecuted in Hell by Marquis de Sade and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, portrayed as circus comedians.

The American Medical Association, presented as a punk rock group, delivers Reich's insanity diagnosis in aggressive song.

The play is a social critique of society's artificial distinctions between good and evil, sanity and insanity, and the infringement of people's natural freedoms.